transcriber's note: this lecture was taken from volume iii of _the complete works of friedrich nietzsche_, dr. oscar levy, ed., j. m. kennedy, translator, 1910] homer and classical philology. (_inaugural address delivered at bâle university, 28th of may 1869._) at the present day no clear and consistent opinion seems to be held regarding classical philology. we are conscious of this in the circles of the learned just as much as among the followers of that science itself. the cause of this lies in its many-sided character, in the lack of an abstract unity, and in the inorganic aggregation of heterogeneous scientific activities which are connected with one another only by the name "philology." it must be freely admitted that philology is to some extent borrowed from several other sciences, and is mixed together like a magic potion from the most outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. it may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element, one which, on æsthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival--an element that acts in opposition to its purely scientific behaviour. philology is composed of history just as much as of natural science or æsthetics: history, in so far as it endeavours to comprehend the manifestations of the individualities of peoples in ever new images, and the prevailing law in the disappearance of phenomena; natural science, in so far as it strives to fathom the deepest instinct of man, that of speech; æsthetics, finally, because from various antiquities at our disposal it endeavours to pick out the so-called "classical" antiquity, with the view and pretension of excavating the ideal world buried under it, and to hold up to the present the mirror of the classical and everlasting standards. that these wholly different scientific and æsthetico-ethical impulses have been associated under a common name, a kind of sham monarchy, is shown especially by the fact that philology at every period from its origin onwards was at the same time pedagogical. from the standpoint of the pedagogue, a choice was offered of those elements which were of the greatest educational value; and thus that science, or at least that scientific aim, which we call philology, gradually developed out of the practical calling originated by the exigencies of that science itself. these philological aims were pursued sometimes with greater ardour and sometimes with less, in accordance with the degree of culture and the development of the taste of a particular period; but, on the other hand, the followers of this science are in the habit of regarding the aims which correspond to their several abilities as _the_ aims of philology; whence it comes about that the estimation of philology in public opinion depends upon the weight of the personalities of the philologists! at the present time--that is to say, in a period which has seen men distinguished in almost every department of philology--a general uncertainty of judgment has increased more and more, and likewise a general relaxation of interest and participation in philological problems. such an undecided and imperfect state of public opinion is damaging to a science in that its hidden and open enemies can work with much better prospects of success. and philology has a great many such enemies. where do we not meet with them, these mockers, always ready to aim a blow at the philological "moles," the animals that practise dust-eating _ex professo_, and that grub up and eat for the eleventh time what they have already eaten ten times before. for opponents of this sort, however, philology is merely a useless, harmless, and inoffensive pastime, an object of laughter and not of hate. but, on the other hand, there is a boundless and infuriated hatred of philology wherever an ideal, as such, is feared, where the modern man falls down to worship himself, and where hellenism is looked upon as a superseded and hence very insignificant point of view. against these enemies, we philologists must always count upon the assistance of artists and men of artistic minds; for they alone can judge how the sword of barbarism sweeps over the head of every one who loses sight of the unutterable simplicity and noble dignity of the hellene; and how no progress in commerce or technical industries, however brilliant, no school regulations, no political education of the masses, however widespread and complete, can protect us from the curse of ridiculous and barbaric offences against good taste, or from annihilation by the gorgon head of the classicist. whilst philology as a whole is looked on with jealous eyes by these two classes of opponents, there are numerous and varied hostilities in other directions of philology; philologists themselves are quarrelling with one another; internal dissensions are caused by useless disputes about precedence and mutual jealousies, but especially by the differences--even enmities--comprised in the name of philology, which are not, however, by any means naturally harmonised instincts. science has this in common with art, that the most ordinary, everyday thing appears to it as something entirely new and attractive, as if metamorphosed by witchcraft and now seen for the first time. life is worth living, says art, the beautiful temptress; life is worth knowing, says science. with this contrast the so heartrending and dogmatic tradition follows in a _theory_, and consequently in the practice of classical philology derived from this theory. we may consider antiquity from a scientific point of view; we may try to look at what has happened with the eye of a historian, or to arrange and compare the linguistic forms of ancient masterpieces, to bring them at all events under a morphological law; but we always lose the wonderful creative force, the real fragrance, of the atmosphere of antiquity; we forget that passionate emotion which instinctively drove our meditation and enjoyment back to the greeks. from this point onwards we must take notice of a clearly determined and very surprising antagonism which philology has great cause to regret. from the circles upon whose help we must place the most implicit reliance--the artistic friends of antiquity, the warm supporters of hellenic beauty and noble simplicity--we hear harsh voices crying out that it is precisely the philologists themselves who are the real opponents and destroyers of the ideals of antiquity. schiller upbraided the philologists with having scattered homer's laurel crown to the winds. it was none other than goethe who, in early life a supporter of wolf's theories regarding homer, recanted in the verses- with subtle wit you took away our former adoration: the iliad, you may us say, was mere conglomeration. think it not crime in any way: youth's fervent adoration leads us to know the verity, and feel the poet's unity. the reason of this want of piety and reverence must lie deeper; and many are in doubt as to whether philologists are lacking in artistic capacity and impressions, so that they are unable to do justice to the ideal, or whether the spirit of negation has become a destructive and iconoclastic principle of theirs. when, however, even the friends of antiquity, possessed of such doubts and hesitations, point to our present classical philology as something questionable, what influence may we not ascribe to the outbursts of the "realists" and the claptrap of the heroes of the passing hour? to answer the latter on this occasion, especially when we consider the nature of the present assembly, would be highly injudicious; at any rate, if i do not wish to meet with the fate of that sophist who, when in sparta, publicly undertook to praise and defend herakles, when he was interrupted with the query: "but who then has found fault with him?" i cannot help thinking, however, that some of these scruples are still sounding in the ears of not a few in this gathering; for they may still be frequently heard from the lips of noble and artistically gifted men--as even an upright philologist must feel them, and feel them most painfully, at moments when his spirits are downcast. for the single individual there is no deliverance from the dissensions referred to; but what we contend and inscribe on our banner is the fact that classical philology, as a whole, has nothing whatsoever to do with the quarrels and bickerings of its individual disciples. the entire scientific and artistic movement of this peculiar centaur is bent, though with cyclopic slowness, upon bridging over the gulf between the ideal antiquity--which is perhaps only the magnificent blossoming of the teutonic longing for the south--and the real antiquity; and thus classical philology pursues only the final end of its own being, which is the fusing together of primarily hostile impulses that have only forcibly been brought together. let us talk as we will about the unattainability of this goal, and even designate the goal itself as an illogical pretension--the aspiration for it is very real; and i should like to try to make it clear by an example that the most significant steps of classical philology never lead away from the ideal antiquity, but to it; and that, just when people are speaking unwarrantably of the overthrow of sacred shrines, new and more worthy altars are being erected. let us then examine the so-called _homeric question_ from this standpoint, a question the most important problem of which schiller called a scholastic barbarism. the important problem referred to is _the question of the personality of homer_. we now meet everywhere with the firm opinion that the question of homer's personality is no longer timely, and that it is quite a different thing from the real "homeric question." it may be added that, for a given period--such as our present philological period, for example--the centre of discussion may be removed from the problem of the poet's personality; for even now a painstaking experiment is being made to reconstruct the homeric poems without the aid of personality, treating them as the work of several different persons. but if the centre of a scientific question is rightly seen to be where the swelling tide of new views has risen up, i.e. where individual scientific investigation comes into contact with the whole life of science and culture--if any one, in other words, indicates a historico-cultural valuation as the central point of the question, he must also, in the province of homeric criticism, take his stand upon the question of personality as being the really fruitful oasis in the desert of the whole argument. for in homer the modern world, i will not say has learnt, but has examined, a great historical point of view; and, even without now putting forward my own opinion as to whether this examination has been or can be happily carried out, it was at all events the first example of the application of that productive point of view. by it scholars learnt to recognise condensed beliefs in the apparently firm, immobile figures of the life of ancient peoples; by it they for the first time perceived the wonderful capability of the soul of a people to represent the conditions of its morals and beliefs in the form of a personality. when historical criticism has confidently seized upon this method of evaporating apparently concrete personalities, it is permissible to point to the first experiment as an important event in the history of sciences, without considering whether it was successful in this instance or not. it is a common occurrence for a series of striking signs and wonderful emotions to precede an epoch-making discovery. even the experiment i have just referred to has its own attractive history; but it goes back to a surprisingly ancient era. friedrich august wolf has exactly indicated the spot where greek antiquity dropped the question. the zenith of the historico-literary studies of the greeks, and hence also of their point of greatest importance--the homeric question--was reached in the age of the alexandrian grammarians. up to this time the homeric question had run through the long chain of a uniform process of development, of which the standpoint of those grammarians seemed to be the last link, the last, indeed, which was attainable by antiquity. they conceived the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ as the creations of _one single_ homer; they declared it to be psychologically possible for two such different works to have sprung from the brain of _one_ genius, in contradiction to the chorizontes, who represented the extreme limit of the scepticism of a few detached individuals of antiquity rather than antiquity itself considered as a whole. to explain the different general impression of the two books on the assumption that _one_ poet composed them both, scholars sought assistance by referring to the seasons of the poet's life, and compared the poet of the _odyssey_ to the setting sun. the eyes of those critics were tirelessly on the lookout for discrepancies in the language and thoughts of the two poems; but at this time also a history of the homeric poem and its tradition was prepared, according to which these discrepancies were not due to homer, but to those who committed his words to writing and those who sang them. it was believed that homer's poem was passed from one generation to another _viva voce_, and faults were attributed to the improvising and at times forgetful bards. at a certain given date, about the time of pisistratus, the poems which had been repeated orally were said to have been collected in manuscript form; but the scribes, it is added, allowed themselves to take some liberties with the text by transposing some lines and adding extraneous matter here and there. this entire hypothesis is the most important in the domain of literary studies that antiquity has exhibited; and the acknowledgment of the dissemination of the homeric poems by word of mouth, as opposed to the habits of a book-learned age, shows in particular a depth of ancient sagacity worthy of our admiration. from those times until the generation that produced friedrich august wolf we must take a jump over a long historical vacuum; but in our own age we find the argument left just as it was at the time when the power of controversy departed from antiquity, and it is a matter of indifference to us that wolf accepted as certain tradition what antiquity itself had set up only as a hypothesis. it may be remarked as most characteristic of this hypothesis that, in the strictest sense, the personality of homer is treated seriously; that a certain standard of inner harmony is everywhere presupposed in the manifestations of the personality; and that, with these two excellent auxiliary hypotheses, whatever is seen to be below this standard and opposed to this inner harmony is at once swept aside as un-homeric. but even this distinguishing characteristic, in place of wishing to recognise the supernatural existence of a tangible personality, ascends likewise through all the stages that lead to that zenith, with ever-increasing energy and clearness. individuality is ever more strongly felt and accentuated; the psychological possibility of a _single_ homer is ever more forcibly demanded. if we descend backwards from this zenith, step by step, we find a guide to the understanding of the homeric problem in the person of aristotle. homer was for him the flawless and untiring artist who knew his end and the means to attain it; but there is still a trace of infantile criticism to be found in aristotle--i.e., in the naive concession he made to the public opinion that considered homer as the author of the original of all comic epics, the _margites_. if we go still further backwards from aristotle, the inability to create a personality is seen to increase; more and more poems are attributed to homer; and every period lets us see its degree of criticism by how much and what it considers as homeric. in this backward examination, we instinctively feel that away beyond herodotus there lies a period in which an immense flood of great epics has been identified with the name of homer. let us imagine ourselves as living in the time of pisistratus: the word "homer" then comprehended an abundance of dissimilarities. what was meant by "homer" at that time? it is evident that that generation found itself unable to grasp a personality and the limits of its manifestations. homer had now become of small consequence. and then we meet with the weighty question: what lies before this period? has homer's personality, because it cannot be grasped, gradually faded away into an empty name? or had all the homeric poems been gathered together in a body, the nation naively representing itself by the figure of homer? _was the person created out of a conception, or the conception out of a person?_ this is the real "homeric question," the central problem of the personality. the difficulty of answering this question, however, is increased when we seek a reply in another direction, from the standpoint of the poems themselves which have come down to us. as it is difficult for us at the present day, and necessitates a serious effort on our part, to understand the law of gravitation clearly--that the earth alters its form of motion when another heavenly body changes its position in space, although no material connection unites one to the other--it likewise costs us some trouble to obtain a clear impression of that wonderful problem which, like a coin long passed from hand to hand, has lost its original and highly conspicuous stamp. poetical works, which cause the hearts of even the greatest geniuses to fail when they endeavour to vie with them, and in which unsurpassable images are held up for the admiration of posterity--and yet the poet who wrote them with only a hollow, shaky name, whenever we do lay hold on him; nowhere the solid kernel of a powerful personality. "for who would wage war with the gods: who, even with the one god?" asks goethe even, who, though a genius, strove in vain to solve that mysterious problem of the homeric inaccessibility. the conception of popular poetry seemed to lead like a bridge over this problem--a deeper and more original power than that of every single creative individual was said to have become active; the happiest people, in the happiest period of its existence, in the highest activity of fantasy and formative power, was said to have created those immeasurable poems. in this universality there is something almost intoxicating in the thought of a popular poem: we feel, with artistic pleasure, the broad, overpowering liberation of a popular gift, and we delight in this natural phenomenon as we do in an uncontrollable cataract. but as soon as we examine this thought at close quarters, we involuntarily put a poetic _mass of people_ in the place of the poetising _soul of the people_: a long row of popular poets in whom individuality has no meaning, and in whom the tumultuous movement of a people's soul, the intuitive strength of a people's eye, and the unabated profusion of a people's fantasy, were once powerful: a row of original geniuses, attached to a time, to a poetic genus, to a subject-matter. such a conception justly made people suspicious. could it be possible that that same nature who so sparingly distributed her rarest and most precious production--genius--should suddenly take the notion of lavishing her gifts in one sole direction? and here the thorny question again made its appearance: could we not get along with one genius only, and explain the present existence of that unattainable excellence? and now eyes were keenly on the lookout for whatever that excellence and singularity might consist of. impossible for it to be in the construction of the complete works, said one party, for this is far from faultless; but doubtless to be found in single songs: in the single pieces above all; not in the whole. a second party, on the other hand, sheltered themselves beneath the authority of aristotle, who especially admired homer's "divine" nature in the choice of his entire subject, and the manner in which he planned and carried it out. if, however, this construction was not clearly seen, this fault was due to the way the poems were handed down to posterity and not to the poet himself--it was the result of retouchings and interpolations, owing to which the original setting of the work gradually became obscured. the more the first school looked for inequalities, contradictions, perplexities, the more energetically did the other school brush aside what in their opinion obscured the original plan, in order, if possible, that nothing might be left remaining but the actual words of the original epic itself. the second school of thought of course held fast by the conception of an epoch-making genius as the composer of the great works. the first school, on the other hand, wavered between the supposition of one genius plus a number of minor poets, and another hypothesis which assumed only a number of superior and even mediocre individual bards, but also postulated a mysterious discharging, a deep, national, artistic impulse, which shows itself in individual minstrels as an almost indifferent medium. it is to this latter school that we must attribute the representation of the homeric poems as the expression of that mysterious impulse. all these schools of thought start from the assumption that the problem of the present form of these epics can be solved from the standpoint of an æsthetic judgment--but we must await the decision as to the authorised line of demarcation between the man of genius and the poetical soul of the people. are there characteristic differences between the utterances of the _man of genius_ and the _poetical soul of the people_? this whole contrast, however, is unjust and misleading. there is no more dangerous assumption in modern æsthetics than that of _popular poetry_ and _individual poetry_, or, as it is usually called, _artistic poetry_. this is the reaction, or, if you will, the superstition, which followed upon the most momentous discovery of historico-philological science, the discovery and appreciation of the _soul of the people_. for this discovery prepared the way for a coming scientific view of history, which was until then, and in many respects is even now, a mere collection of materials, with the prospect that new materials would continue to be added, and that the huge, overflowing pile would never be systematically arranged. the people now understood for the first time that the long-felt power of greater individualities and wills was larger than the pitifully small will of an individual man;[1] they now saw that everything truly great in the kingdom of the will could not have its deepest root in the inefficacious and ephemeral individual will; and, finally, they now discovered the powerful instincts of the masses, and diagnosed those unconscious impulses to be the foundations and supports of the so-called universal history. but the newly-lighted flame also cast its shadow: and this shadow was none other than that superstition already referred to, which popular poetry set up in opposition to individual poetry, and thus enlarged the comprehension of the people's soul to that of the people's mind. by the misapplication of a tempting analogical inference, people had reached the point of applying in the domain of the intellect and artistic ideas that principle of greater individuality which is truly applicable only in the domain of the will. the masses have never experienced more flattering treatment than in thus having the laurel of genius set upon their empty heads. it was imagined that new shells were forming round a small kernel, so to speak, and that those pieces of popular poetry originated like avalanches, in the drift and flow of tradition. they were, however, ready to consider that kernel as being of the smallest possible dimensions, so that they might occasionally get rid of it altogether without losing anything of the mass of the avalanche. according to this view, the text itself and the stories built round it are one and the same thing. [1] of course nietzsche saw afterwards that this was not so.--tr. now, however, such a contrast between popular poetry and individual poetry does not exist at all; on the contrary, all poetry, and of course popular poetry also, requires an intermediary individuality. this much-abused contrast, therefore, is necessary only when the term _individual poem_ is understood to mean a poem which has not grown out of the soil of popular feeling, but which has been composed by a non-popular poet in a non-popular atmosphere--something which has come to maturity in the study of a learned man, for example. with the superstition which presupposes poetising masses is connected another: that popular poetry is limited to one particular period of a people's history and afterwards dies out--which indeed follows as a consequence of the first superstition i have mentioned. according to this school, in the place of the gradually decaying popular poetry we have artistic poetry, the work of individual minds, not of masses of people. but the same powers which were once active are still so; and the form in which they act has remained exactly the same. the great poet of a literary period is still a popular poet in no narrower sense than the popular poet of an illiterate age. the difference between them is not in the way they originate, but it is their diffusion and propagation, in short, _tradition_. this tradition is exposed to eternal danger without the help of handwriting, and runs the risk of including in the poems the remains of those individualities through whose oral tradition they were handed down. if we apply all these principles to the homeric poems, it follows that we gain nothing with our theory of the poetising soul of the people, and that we are always referred back to the poetical individual. we are thus confronted with the task of distinguishing that which can have originated only in a single poetical mind from that which is, so to speak, swept up by the tide of oral tradition, and which is a highly important constituent part of the homeric poems. since literary history first ceased to be a mere collection of names, people have attempted to grasp and formulate the individualities of the poets. a certain mechanism forms part of the method: it must be explained--i.e., it must be deduced from principles--why this or that individuality appears in this way and not in that. people now study biographical details, environment, acquaintances, contemporary events, and believe that by mixing all these ingredients together they will be able to manufacture the wished-for individuality. but they forget that the _punctum saliens_, the indefinable individual characteristics, can never be obtained from a compound of this nature. the less there is known about the life and times of the poet, the less applicable is this mechanism. when, however, we have merely the works and the name of the writer, it is almost impossible to detect the individuality, at all events, for those who put their faith in the mechanism in question; and particularly when the works are perfect, when they are pieces of popular poetry. for the best way for these mechanicians to grasp individual characteristics is by perceiving deviations from the genius of the people; the aberrations and hidden allusions: and the fewer discrepancies to be found in a poem the fainter will be the traces of the individual poet who composed it. all those deviations, everything dull and below the ordinary standard which scholars think they perceive in the homeric poems, were attributed to tradition, which thus became the scapegoat. what was left of homer's own individual work? nothing but a series of beautiful and prominent passages chosen in accordance with subjective taste. the sum total of æsthetic singularity which every individual scholar perceived with his own artistic gifts, he now called homer. this is the central point of the homeric errors. the name of homer, from the very beginning, has no connection either with the conception of æsthetic perfection or yet with the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_. homer as the composer of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ is not a historical tradition, but an _æsthetic judgment_. the only path which leads back beyond the time of pisistratus and helps us to elucidate the meaning of the name homer, takes its way on the one hand through the reports which have reached us concerning homer's birthplace: from which we see that, although his name is always associated with heroic epic poems, he is on the other hand no more referred to as the composer of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ than as the author of the _thebais_ or any other cyclical epic. on the other hand, again, an old tradition tells of the contest between homer and hesiod, which proves that when these two names were mentioned people instinctively thought of two epic tendencies, the heroic and the didactic; and that the signification of the name "homer" was included in the material category and not in the formal. this imaginary contest with hesiod did not even yet show the faintest presentiment of individuality. from the time of pisistratus onwards, however, with the surprisingly rapid development of the greek feeling for beauty, the differences in the æsthetic value of those epics continued to be felt more and more: the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ arose from the depths of the flood and have remained on the surface ever since. with this process of æsthetic separation, the conception of homer gradually became narrower: the old material meaning of the name "homer" as the father of the heroic epic poem, was changed into the æsthetic meaning of homer, the father of poetry in general, and likewise its original prototype. this transformation was contemporary with the rationalistic criticism which made homer the magician out to be a possible poet, which vindicated the material and formal traditions of those numerous epics as against the unity of the poet, and gradually removed that heavy load of cyclical epics from homer's shoulders. so homer, the poet of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_, is an æsthetic judgment. it is, however, by no means affirmed against the poet of these epics that he was merely the imaginary being of an æsthetic impossibility, which can be the opinion of only very few philologists indeed. the majority contend that a single individual was responsible for the general design of a poem such as the _iliad_, and further that this individual was homer. the first part of this contention may be admitted; but, in accordance with what i have said, the latter part must be denied. and i very much doubt whether the majority of those who adopt the first part of the contention have taken the following considerations into account. the design of an epic such as the _iliad_ is not an entire _whole_, not an organism; but a number of pieces strung together, a collection of reflections arranged in accordance with æsthetic rules. it is certainly the standard of an artist's greatness to note what he can take in with a single glance and set out in rhythmical form. the infinite profusion of images and incidents in the homeric epic must force us to admit that such a wide range of vision is next to impossible. where, however, a poet is unable to observe artistically with a single glance, he usually piles conception on conception, and endeavours to adjust his characters according to a comprehensive scheme. he will succeed in this all the better the more he is familiar with the fundamental principles of æsthetics: he will even make some believe that he made himself master of the entire subject by a single powerful glance. the _iliad_ is not a garland, but a bunch of flowers. as many pictures as possible are crowded on one canvas; but the man who placed them there was indifferent as to whether the grouping of the collected pictures was invariably suitable and rhythmically beautiful. he well knew that no one would ever consider the collection as a whole; but would merely look at the individual parts. but that stringing together of some pieces as the manifestations of a grasp of art which was not yet highly developed, still less thoroughly comprehended and generally esteemed, cannot have been the real homeric deed, the real homeric epoch-making event. on the contrary, this design is a later product, far later than homer's celebrity. those, therefore, who look for the "original and perfect design" are looking for a mere phantom; for the dangerous path of oral tradition had reached its end just as the systematic arrangement appeared on the scene; the disfigurements which were caused on the way could not have affected the design, for this did not form part of the material handed down from generation to generation. the relative imperfection of the design must not, however, prevent us from seeing in the designer a different personality from the real poet. it is not only probable that everything which was created in those times with conscious æsthetic insight, was infinitely inferior to the songs that sprang up naturally in the poet's mind and were written down with instinctive power: we can even take a step further. if we include the so-called cyclic poems in this comparison, there remains for the designer of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ the indisputable merit of having done something relatively great in this conscious technical composing: a merit which we might have been prepared to recognise from the beginning, and which is in my opinion of the very first order in the domain of instinctive creation. we may even be ready to pronounce this synthetisation of great importance. all those dull passages and discrepancies--deemed of such importance, but really only subjective, which we usually look upon as the petrified remains of the period of tradition--are not these perhaps merely the almost necessary evils which must fall to the lot of the poet of genius who undertakes a composition virtually without a parallel, and, further, one which proves to be of incalculable difficulty? let it be noted that the insight into the most diverse operations of the instinctive and the conscious changes the position of the homeric problem; and in my opinion throws light upon it. we believe in a great poet as the author of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey--but not that homer was this poet_. the decision on this point has already been given. the generation that invented those numerous homeric fables, that poetised the myth of the contest between homer and hesiod, and looked upon all the poems of the epic cycle as homeric, did not feel an æsthetic but a material singularity when it pronounced the name "homer." this period regards homer as belonging to the ranks of artists like orpheus, eumolpus, dædalus, and olympus, the mythical discoverers of a new branch of art, to whom, therefore, all the later fruits which grew from the new branch were thankfully dedicated. and that wonderful genius to whom we owe the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ belongs to this thankful posterity: he, too, sacrificed his name on the altar of the primeval father of the homeric epic, homeros. up to this point, gentlemen, i think i have been able to put before you the fundamental philosophical and æsthetic characteristics of the problem of the personality of homer, keeping all minor details rigorously at a distance, on the supposition that the primary form of this widespread and honeycombed mountain known as the homeric question can be most clearly observed by looking down at it from a far-off height. but i have also, i imagine, recalled two facts to those friends of antiquity who take such delight in accusing us philologists of lack of piety for great conceptions and an unproductive zeal for destruction. in the first place, those "great" conceptions--such, for example, as that of the indivisible and inviolable poetic genius, homer--were during the pre-wolfian period only too great, and hence inwardly altogether empty and elusive when we now try to grasp them. if classical philology goes back again to the same conceptions, and once more tries to pour new wine into old bottles, it is only on the surface that the conceptions are the same: everything has really become new; bottle and mind, wine and word. we everywhere find traces of the fact that philology has lived in company with poets, thinkers, and artists for the last hundred years: whence it has now come about that the heap of ashes formerly pointed to as classical philology is now turned into fruitful and even rich soil.[2] [2] nietzsche perceived later on that this statement was, unfortunately, not justified.--tr. and there is a second fact which i should like to recall to the memory of those friends of antiquity who turn their dissatisfied backs on classical philology. you honour the immortal masterpieces of the hellenic mind in poetry and sculpture, and think yourselves so much more fortunate than preceding generations, which had to do without them; but you must not forget that this whole fairyland once lay buried under mountains of prejudice, and that the blood and sweat and arduous labour of innumerable followers of our science were all necessary to lift up that world from the chasm into which it had sunk. we grant that philology is not the creator of this world, not the composer of that immortal music; but is it not a merit, and a great merit, to be a mere virtuoso, and let the world for the first time hear that music which lay so long in obscurity, despised and undecipherable? who was homer previously to wolf's brilliant investigations? a good old man, known at best as a "natural genius," at all events the child of a barbaric age, replete with faults against good taste and good morals. let us hear how a learned man of the first rank writes about homer even so late as 1783: "where does the good man live? why did he remain so long incognito? apropos, can't you get me a silhouette of him?" we demand _thanks_--not in our own name, for we are but atoms--but in the name of philology itself, which is indeed neither a muse nor a grace, but a messenger of the gods: and just as the muses descended upon the dull and tormented boeotian peasants, so philology comes into a world full of gloomy colours and pictures, full of the deepest, most incurable woes; and speaks to men comfortingly of the beautiful and godlike figure of a distant, rosy, and happy fairyland. it is time to close; yet before i do so a few words of a personal character must be added, justified, i hope, by the occasion of this lecture. it is but right that a philologist should describe his end and the means to it in the short formula of a confession of faith; and let this be done in the saying of seneca which i thus reverse- "philosophia facta est quæ philologia fuit." by this i wish to signify that all philological activities should be enclosed and surrounded by a philosophical view of things, in which everything individual and isolated is evaporated as something detestable, and in which great homogeneous views alone remain. now, therefore, that i have enunciated my philological creed, i trust you will give me cause to hope that i shall no longer be a stranger among you: give me the assurance that in working with you towards this end i am worthily fulfilling the confidence with which the highest authorities of this community have honoured me. essays*** transcribed by david price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk the humour of homer and other essays introduction by r. a. streatfeild the nucleus of this book is the collection of essays by samuel butler, which was originally published by mr. grant richards in 1904 under the title essays on life, art and science, and reissued by mr. fifield in 1908. to these are now added another essay, entitled "the humour of homer," a biographical sketch of the author kindly contributed by mr. henry festing jones, which will add materially to the value of the edition, and a portrait in photogravure from a photograph taken in 1889--the period of the essays. [photograph of samuel butler. caption reads: from a photograph made by pizzetta in varallo in 1889. emery walker ltd., ph. sc. butler.jpg] "the humour of homer" was originally delivered as a lecture at the working men's college in great ormond street on the 30th january, 1892, the day on which butler first promulgated his theory of the trapanese origin of the odyssey in a letter to the athenaeum. later in the same year it was published with some additional matter by messrs. metcalfe and co. of cambridge. for the next five years butler was engaged upon researches into the origin and authorship of the odyssey, the results of which are embodied in his book the authoress of the "odyssey," originally published by messrs. longman in 1897. butler incorporated a good deal of "the humour of homer" into the authoress of the "odyssey," but the section relating to the iliad naturally found no place in the later work. for the sake of this alone "the humour of homer" deserves to be better known. written as it was for an artisan audience and professing to deal only with one side of homer's genius, "the humour of homer" must not, of course, be taken as an exhaustive statement of butler's views upon homeric questions. it touches but lightly on important points, particularly regarding the origin and authorship of the odyssey, which are treated at much greater length in the authoress of the "odyssey." nevertheless, "the humour of homer" appears to me to have a special value as a kind of general introduction to butler's more detailed study of the odyssey. his attitude towards the homeric poems is here expressed with extraordinary freshness and force. what that attitude was is best explained by his own words: "if a person would understand either the odyssey or any other ancient work, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living in them, nor at the living without thinking of the dead. we are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another." butler did not undervalue the philological and archaeological importance of the iliad and the odyssey, but it was mainly as human documents that they appealed to him. this, i am inclined to suspect, was the root of the objection of academic critics to him and his theories. they did not so much resent the suggestion that the author of the odyssey was a woman; they could not endure that he should be treated as a human being. of the remaining essays two were originally delivered as lectures; the others appeared first in the universal review in 1888, 1889 and 1890. i should perhaps explain why two other essays which also appeared in the universal review are not included in this collection. the first of these, entitled "l'affaire holbeinrippel," relates to a drawing of holbein's "danse des paysans" in the basle museum, which is usually described as a copy, but which butler believed to be the work of holbein himself. this essay requires to be illustrated in so elaborate a manner that it was impossible to include it in a book of this size. the second essay, which is a sketch of the career of the sculptor tabachetti, was published as the first section of an article, entitled "a sculptor and a shrine," of which the second part is here given under the title "the sanctuary of montrigone." the section devoted to the sculptor contains all that butler then knew about tabachetti, but since it was written various documents have come to light, principally through the investigations of cavaliere francesco negri, of casale monferrato, which negative some of butler's conclusions. had butler lived, i do not doubt that he would have revised his essay in the light of cavaliere negri's discoveries, the value of which he fully recognized. as it stands the essay requires so much revision that i have decided to omit it altogether and to postpone giving english readers a full account of tabachetti's career until a second edition of butler's "ex voto," in which tabachetti's work is discussed in detail, is required. meanwhile i have given a brief summary of the main facts of tabachetti's life in a note (p. 195) to the essay on "art in the valley of saas." anyone who desires further details concerning the sculptor and his work will find them in cavaliere negri's pamphlet "il santuario di crea" (alessandria, 1902). the three essays grouped together under the title the deadlock in darwinism may be regarded as a postscript to butler's four books on evolution, viz. life and habit, evolution old and new, unconscious memory, and luck or cunning? when these essays were first published in book form in 1904, i ventured to give a brief summary of butler's position with regard to the main problem of evolution. i need now only refer readers to mr. festing jones's biographical sketch and, for fuller details, to the masterly introduction contributed by professor marcus hartog to the new edition of unconscious memory (a. c. fifield, 1910), and recently reprinted in his problems of life and reproduction (john murray, 1913), in which butler's work in the field of biology and his share in the various controversies connected with the study of evolution are discussed with the authority of a specialist. r. a. streatfeild. july, 1913. sketch of the life of samuel butler author of erewhon (1835-1902) by henry festing jones note this sketch of butler's life, together with the portrait which forms the frontispiece to this volume, first appeared in december, 1902, in the eagle, the magazine of st. john's college, cambridge. i revised the sketch and read it before the british homoeopathic association at 43 russell square, london, w.c., on the 9th february, 1910; some of butler's music was performed by miss grainger kerr, mr. r. a. streatfeild, mr. j. a. fuller maitland, and mr. h. j. t. wood, the secretary of the association. i again revised it and read it before the historical society of st. john's college, cambridge, in the combination room of the college on the 16th november, 1910; the master (mr. r. f. scott), who was also vice-chancellor of the university, was in the chair, and a vote of thanks was proposed by professor william bateson, f.r.s. as the full memoir of butler on which i am engaged is not yet ready for publication, i have again revised the sketch, and it is here published in response to many demands for some account of his life. h. f. j. august, 1913. sketch of the life of samuel butler author of erewhon (1835-1902) samuel butler was born on the 4th december, 1835, at the rectory, langar, near bingham, in nottinghamshire. his father was the rev. thomas butler, then rector of langar, afterwards one of the canons of lincoln cathedral, and his mother was fanny worsley, daughter of john philip worsley of arno's vale, bristol, sugar-refiner. his grandfather was dr. samuel butler, the famous headmaster of shrewsbury school, afterwards bishop of lichfield. the butlers are not related either to the author of hudibras, or to the author of the analogy, or to the present master of trinity college, cambridge. butler's father, after being at school at shrewsbury under dr. butler, went up to st. john's college, cambridge; he took his degree in 1829, being seventh classic and twentieth senior optime; he was ordained and returned to shrewsbury, where he was for some time assistant master at the school under dr. butler. he married in 1832 and left shrewsbury for langar. he was a learned botanist, and made a collection of dried plants which he gave to the town museum of shrewsbury. butler's childhood and early life were spent at langar among the surroundings of an english country rectory, and his education was begun by his father. in 1843, when he was only eight years old, the first great event in his life occurred; the family, consisting of his father and mother, his two sisters, his brother and himself, went to italy. the south-eastern railway stopped at ashford, whence they travelled to dover in their own carriage; the carriage was put on board the steamboat, they crossed the channel, and proceeded to cologne, up the rhine to basle and on through switzerland into italy, through parma, where napoleon's widow was still reigning, modena, bologna, florence, and so to rome. they had to drive where there was no railway, and there was then none in all italy except between naples and castellamare. they seemed to pass a fresh custom-house every day, but, by tipping the searchers, generally got through without inconvenience. the bread was sour and the italian butter rank and cheesy--often uneatable. beggars ran after the carriage all day long and when they got nothing jeered at the travellers and called them heretics. they spent half the winter in rome, and the children were taken up to the top of st. peter's as a treat to celebrate their father's birthday. in the sistine chapel they saw the cardinals kiss the toe of pope gregory xvi, and in the corso, in broad daylight, they saw a monk come rolling down a staircase like a sack of potatoes, bundled into the street by a man and his wife. the second half of the winter was spent in naples. this early introduction to the land which he always thought of and often referred to as his second country made an ineffaceable impression upon him. in january, 1846, he went to school at allesley, near coventry, under the rev. e. gibson. he seldom referred to his life there, though sometimes he would say something that showed he had not forgotten all about it. for instance, in 1900 mr. sydney c. cockerell, now the director of the fitzwilliam museum, cambridge, showed him a medieval missal, laboriously illuminated. he found that it fatigued him to look at it, and said that such books ought never to be made. cockerell replied that such books relieved the tedium of divine service, on which butler made a note ending thus: give me rather a robin or a peripatetic cat like the one whose loss the parishioners of st. clement danes are still deploring. when i was at school at allesley the boy who knelt opposite me at morning prayers, with his face not more than a yard away from mine, used to blow pretty little bubbles with his saliva which he would send sailing off the tip of his tongue like miniature soap bubbles; they very soon broke, but they had a career of a foot or two. i never saw anyone else able to get saliva bubbles right away from him and, though i have endeavoured for some fifty years and more to acquire the art, i never yet could start the bubble off my tongue without its bursting. now things like this really do relieve the tedium of church, but no missal that i have ever seen will do anything except increase it. in 1848 he left allesley and went to shrewsbury under the rev. b. h. kennedy. many of the recollections of his school life at shrewsbury are reproduced for the school life of ernest pontifex at roughborough in the way of all flesh, dr. skinner being dr. kennedy. during these years he first heard the music of handel; it went straight to his heart and satisfied a longing which the music of other composers had only awakened and intensified. he became as one of the listening brethren who stood around "when jubal struck the chorded shell" in the song for saint cecilia's day: less than a god, they thought, there could not dwell within the hollow of that shell that spoke so sweetly and so well. this was the second great event in his life, and henceforward italy and handel were always present at the bottom of his mind as a kind of double pedal to every thought, word, and deed. almost the last thing he ever asked me to do for him, within a few days of his death, was to bring solomon that he might refresh his memory as to the harmonies of "with thee th' unsheltered moor i'd trace." he often tried to like the music of bach and beethoven, but found himself compelled to give them up--they bored him too much. nor was he more successful with the other great composers; haydn, for instance, was a sort of horace, an agreeable, facile man of the world, while mozart, who must have loved handel, for he wrote additional accompaniments to the messiah, failed to move him. it was not that he disputed the greatness of these composers, but he was out of sympathy with them, and never could forgive the last two for having led music astray from the handel tradition and paved the road from bach to beethoven. everything connected with handel interested him. he remembered old mr. brooke, rector of gamston, north notts, who had been present at the handel commemoration in 1784, and his great-aunt, miss susannah apthorp, of cambridge, had known a lady who had sat upon handel's knee. he often regretted that these were his only links with "the greatest of all composers." besides his love for handel he had a strong liking for drawing, and, during the winter of 1853-4, his family again took him to italy, where, being now eighteen, he looked on the works of the old masters with intelligence. in october, 1854, he went into residence at st. john's college, cambridge. he showed no aptitude for any particular branch of academic study, nevertheless he impressed his friends as being likely to make his mark. just as he used reminiscences of his own schooldays at shrewsbury for ernest's life at roughborough, so he used reminiscences of his own cambridge days for those of ernest. when the simeonites, in the way of all flesh, "distributed tracts, dropping them at night in good men's letter boxes while they slept, their tracts got burnt or met with even worse contumely." ernest pontifex went so far as to parody one of these tracts and to get a copy of the parody "dropped into each of the simeonites' boxes." ernest did this in the novel because butler had done it in real life. mr. a. t. bartholomew, of the university library, has found, among the cambridge papers of the late j. willis clark's collection, three printed pieces belonging to the year 1855 bearing on the subject. he speaks of them in an article headed "samuel butler and the simeonites," and signed a. t. b. in the cambridge magazine, 1st march, 1913; the first is "a genuine simeonite tract; the other two are parodies. all three are anonymous. at the top of the second parody is written 'by s. butler, march 31.'" the article gives extracts from the genuine tract and the whole of butler's parody. besides parodying simeonite tracts, butler wrote various other papers during his undergraduate days, some of which, preserved by one of his contemporaries, who remained a lifelong friend, the rev. canon joseph m'cormick, now rector of st. james's, piccadilly, are reproduced in the note-books of samuel butler (1912). he also steered the lady margaret first boat, and canon m'cormick told me of a mishap that occurred on the last night of the races in 1857. lady margaret had been head of the river since 1854, canon m'cormick was rowing 5, philip pennant pearson (afterwards p. pennant) was 7, canon kynaston, of durham (whose name formerly was snow), was stroke, and butler was cox. when the cox let go of the bung at starting, the rope caught in his rudder lines, and lady margaret was nearly bumped by second trinity. they escaped, however, and their pursuers were so much exhausted by their efforts to catch them that they were themselves bumped by first trinity at the next corner. butler wrote home about it: 11 march, 1857. dear mamma: my foreboding about steering was on the last day nearly verified by an accident which was more deplorable than culpable the effects of which would have been ruinous had not the presence of mind of no. 7 in the boat rescued us from the very jaws of defeat. the scene is one which never can fade from my remembrance and will be connected always with the gentlemanly conduct of the crew in neither using opprobrious language nor gesture towards your unfortunate son but treating him with the most graceful forbearance; for in most cases when an accident happens which in itself is but slight, but is visited with serious consequences, most people get carried away with the impression created by the last so as to entirely forget the accidental nature of the cause and if we had been quite bumped i should have been ruined, as it is i get praise for coolness and good steering as much as and more than blame for my accident and the crew are so delighted at having rowed a race such as never was seen before that they are satisfied completely. all the spectators saw the race and were delighted; another inch and i should never have held up my head again. one thing is safe, it will never happen again. the eagle, "a magazine supported by members of st. john's college," issued its first number in the lent term of 1858; it contains an article by butler "on english composition and other matters," signed "cellarius": most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a man should be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give it any kind of utterance, and that, having made up his mind what to say, the less thought he takes how to say it, more than briefly, pointedly and plainly, the better. from this it appears that, when only just over twenty-two, butler had already discovered and adopted those principles of writing from which he never departed. in the fifth number of the eagle is an article, "our tour," also signed "cellarius"; it is an account of a tour made in june, 1857, with a friend whose name he italianized into giuseppe verdi, through france into north italy, and was written, so he says, to show how they got so much into three weeks and spent only 25 pounds; they did not, however, spend quite so much, for the article goes on, after bringing them back to england, "next day came safely home to dear old st. john's, cash in hand 7d." {19} butler worked hard with shilleto, an old pupil of his grandfather, and was bracketed 12th in the classical tripos of 1858. canon m'cormick told me that he would no doubt have been higher but for the fact that he at first intended to go out in mathematics; it was only during the last year of his time that he returned to the classics, and his being so high as he was spoke well for the classical education of shrewsbury. it had always been an understood thing that he was to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and become a clergyman; accordingly, after taking his degree, he went to london and began to prepare for ordination, living and working among the poor as lay assistant under the rev. philip perring, curate of st. james's, piccadilly, an old pupil of dr. butler at shrewsbury. {20} placed among such surroundings, he felt bound to think out for himself many theological questions which at this time were first presented to him, and, the conclusion being forced upon him that he could not believe in the efficacy of infant baptism, he declined to be ordained. it was now his desire to become an artist; this, however, did not meet with the approval of his family, and he returned to cambridge to try for pupils and, if possible, to get a fellowship. he liked being at cambridge, but there were few pupils and, as there seemed to be little chance of a fellowship, his father wished him to come down and adopt some profession. a long correspondence took place in the course of which many alternatives were considered. there are letters about his becoming a farmer in england, a tutor, a homoeopathic doctor, an artist, or a publisher, and the possibilities of the army, the bar, and diplomacy. finally it was decided that he should emigrate to new zealand. his passage was paid, and he was to sail in the burmah, but a cousin of his received information about this vessel which caused him, much against his will, to get back his passage money and take a berth in the roman emperor, which sailed from gravesend on one of the last days of september, 1859. on that night, for the first time in his life, he did not say his prayers. "i suppose the sense of change was so great that it shook them quietly off. i was not then a sceptic; i had got as far as disbelief in infant baptism, but no further. i felt no compunction of conscience, however, about leaving off my morning and evening prayers--simply i could no longer say them." the roman emperor, after a voyage every incident of which interested him deeply, arrived outside port lyttelton. the captain shouted to the pilot who came to take them in: "has the robert small arrived?" "no," replied the pilot, "nor yet the burmah." and butler, writing home to his people, adds the comment: "you may imagine what i felt." the burmah was never heard of again. he spent some time looking round, considering what to do and how to employ the money with which his father was ready to supply him, and determined upon sheep-farming. he made several excursions looking for country, and ultimately took up a run which is still called mesopotamia, the name he gave it because it is situated among the head-waters of the rangitata. it was necessary to have a horse, and he bought one for 55 pounds, which was not considered dear. he wrote home that the horse's name was "doctor": "i hope he is a homoeopathist." from this, and from the fact that he had already contemplated becoming a homoeopathic doctor himself, i conclude that he had made the acquaintance of dr. robert ellis dudgeon, the eminent homoeopathist, while he was doing parish work in london. after his return to england dr. dudgeon was his medical adviser, and remained one of his most intimate friends until the end of his life. doctor, the horse, is introduced into erewhon revisited; the shepherd in chapter xxvi tells john higgs that doctor "would pick fords better than that gentleman could, i know, and if the gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock still." butler carried on his run for about four and a half years, and the open-air life agreed with him; he ascribed to this the good health he afterwards enjoyed. the following, taken from a notebook he kept in the colony and destroyed, gives a glimpse of one side of his life there; he preserved the note because it recalled new zealand so vividly. april, 1861. it is sunday. we rose later than usual. there are five of us sleeping in the hut. i sleep in a bunk on one side of the fire; mr. haast, {22} a german who is making a geological survey of the province, sleeps upon the opposite one; my bullockdriver and hut-keeper have two bunks at the far end of the hut, along the wall, while my shepherd lies in the loft among the tea and sugar and flour. it was a fine morning, and we turned out about seven o'clock. the usual mutton and bread for breakfast with a pudding made of flour and water baked in the camp oven after a joint of meat-yorkshire pudding, but without eggs. while we were at breakfast a robin perched on the table and sat there a good while pecking at the sugar. we went on breakfasting with little heed to the robin, and the robin went on pecking with little heed to us. after breakfast pey, my bullock-driver, went to fetch the horses up from a spot about two miles down the river, where they often run; we wanted to go pig-hunting. i go into the garden and gather a few peascods for seed till the horses should come up. then cook, the shepherd, says that a fire has sprung up on the other side of the river. who could have lit it? probably someone who had intended coming to my place on the preceding evening and has missed his way, for there is no track of any sort between here and phillips's. in a quarter of an hour he lit another fire lower down, and by that time, the horses having come up, haast and myself--remembering how dr. sinclair had just been drowned so near the same spot--think it safer to ride over to him and put him across the river. the river was very low and so clear that we could see every stone. on getting to the river-bed we lit a fire and did the same on leaving it; our tracks would guide anyone over the intervening ground. besides his occupation with the sheep, he found time to play the piano, to read and to write. in the library of st. john's college, cambridge, are two copies of the greek testament, very fully annotated by him at the university and in the colony. he also read the origin of species, which, as everyone knows, was published in 1859. he became "one of mr. darwin's many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue (the most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed unknown countries, that even literature can assume) upon the origin of species" (unconscious memory, close of chapter i). this dialogue, unsigned, was printed in the press, canterbury, new zealand, on 20th december, 1862. a copy of the paper was sent to charles darwin, who forwarded it to a, presumably, english editor with a letter, now in the canterbury museum, new zealand, speaking of the dialogue as "remarkable from its spirit and from giving so clear and accurate an account of mr. d's theory." it is possible that butler himself sent the newspaper containing his dialogue to mr. darwin; if so he did not disclose his name, for darwin says in his letter that he does not know who the author was. butler was closely connected with the press, which was founded by james edward fitzgerald, the first superintendent of the province, in may, 1861; he frequently contributed to its pages, and once, during fitzgerald's absence, had charge of it for a short time, though he was never its actual editor. the press reprinted the dialogue and the correspondence which followed its original appearance on 8th june, 1912. on 13th june, 1863, the press printed a letter by butler signed "cellarius" and headed "darwin among the machines," reprinted in the note-books of samuel butler (1912). the letter begins: "sir: there are few things of which the present generation is more justly proud than of the wonderful improvements which are daily taking place in all sorts of mechanical appliances"; and goes on to say that, as the vegetable kingdom was developed from the mineral, and as the animal kingdom supervened upon the vegetable, "so now, in the last few ages, an entirely new kingdom has sprung up of which we as yet have only seen what will one day be considered the antediluvian types of the race." he then speaks of the minute members which compose the beautiful and intelligent little animal which we call the watch, and of how it has gradually been evolved from the clumsy brass clocks of the thirteenth century. then comes the question: who will be man's successor? to which the answer is: we are ourselves creating our own successors. man will become to the machine what the horse and the dog are to man; the conclusion being that machines are, or are becoming, animate. in 1863 butler's family published in his name a first year in canterbury settlement, which, as the preface states, was compiled from his letters home, his journal and extracts from two papers contributed to the eagle. these two papers had appeared in the eagle as three articles entitled "our emigrant" and signed "cellarius." the proof sheets of the book went out to new zealand for correction and were sent back in the colombo, which was as unfortunate as the burmah, for she was wrecked. the proofs, however, were fished up, though so nearly washed out as to be almost undecipherable. butler would have been just as well pleased if they had remained at the bottom of the indian ocean, for he never liked the book and always spoke of it as being full of youthful priggishness; but i think he was a little hard upon it. years afterwards, in one of his later books, after quoting two passages from mr. grant allen and pointing out why he considered the second to be a recantation of the first, he wrote: "when mr. allen does make stepping-stones of his dead selves he jumps upon them to some tune." and he was perhaps a little inclined to treat his own dead self too much in the same spirit. butler did very well with the sheep, sold out in 1864 and returned via callao to england. he travelled with three friends whose acquaintance he had made in the colony; one was charles paine pauli, to whom he dedicated life and habit. he arrived in august, 1864, in london, where he took chambers consisting of a sitting-room, a bedroom, a painting-room and a pantry, at 15 clifford's inn, second floor (north). the net financial result of the sheep-farming and the selling out was that he practically doubled his capital, that is to say he had about 8000 pounds. this he left in new zealand, invested on mortgage at 10 per cent, the then current rate in the colony; it produced more than enough for him to live upon in the very simple way that suited him best, and life in the inns of court resembles life at cambridge in that it reduces the cares of housekeeping to a minimum; it suited him so well that he never changed his rooms, remaining there thirty-eight years till his death. he was now his own master and able at last to turn to painting. he studied at the art school in streatham street, bloomsbury, which had formerly been managed by henry sass, but, in butler's time, was being carried on by francis stephen gary, son of the rev. henry francis gary, who had been a school-fellow of dr. butler at rugby and is well known as the translator of dante and the friend of charles lamb. among his fellow-students was mr. h. r. robertson, who told me that the young artists got hold of the legend, which is in some of the books about lamb, that when francis stephen gary was a boy and there was a talk at his father's house as to what profession he should take up, lamb, who was present, said: "i should make him an apo-po-pothe-cary." they used to repeat this story freely among themselves, being, no doubt, amused by the lamb-like pun, but also enjoying the malicious pleasure of hinting that it might have been as well for their art education if the advice of the gentle humorist had been followed. anyone who wants to know what kind of an artist f. s. cary was can see his picture of charles and mary lamb in the national portrait gallery. in 1865 butler sent from london to new zealand an article entitled "lucubratio ebria," which was published in the press of 29th july, 1865. it treated machines from a point of view different from that adopted in "darwin among the machines," and was one of the steps that led to erewhon and ultimately to life and habit. the article is reproduced in the note-books of samuel butler (1912). butler also studied art at south kensington, but by 1867 he had begun to go to heatherley's school of art in newman street, where he continued going for many years. he made a number of friends at heatherley's, and among them miss eliza mary anne savage. there also he first met charles gogin, who, in 1896, painted the portrait of butler which is now in the national portrait gallery. he described himself as an artist in the post office directory, and between 1868 and 1876 exhibited at the royal academy about a dozen pictures, of which the most important was "mr. heatherley's holiday," hung on the line in 1874. he left it by his will to his college friend jason smith, whose representatives, after his death, in 1910, gave it to the nation and it is now in the national gallery of british art. mr. heatherley never went away for a holiday; he once had to go out of town on business and did not return till the next day; one of the students asked him how he had got on, saying no doubt he had enjoyed the change and that he must have found it refreshing to sleep for once out of london. "no," said heatherley, "i did not like it. country air has no body." the consequence was that, whenever there was a holiday and the school was shut, heatherley employed the time in mending the skeleton; butler's picture represents him so engaged in a corner of the studio. in this way he got his model for nothing. sometimes he hung up a looking-glass near one of his windows and painted his own portrait. many of these he painted out, but after his death we found a little store of them in his rooms, some of the early ones very curious. of the best of them one is now at canterbury, new zealand, one at st. john's college, cambridge, and one at the schools, shrewsbury. this is butler's own account of himself, taken from a letter to sir julius von haast; although written in 1865 it is true of his mode of life for many years: i have been taking lessons in painting ever since i arrived, i was always very fond of it and mean to stick to it; it suits me and i am not without hopes that i shall do well at it. i live almost the life of a recluse, seeing very few people and going nowhere that i can help--i mean in the way of parties and so forth; if my friends had their way they would fritter away my time without any remorse; but i made a regular stand against it from the beginning and so, having my time pretty much in my own hands, work hard; i find, as i am sure you must find, that it is next to impossible to combine what is commonly called society and work. but the time saved from society was not all devoted to painting. he modified his letter to the press about "darwin among the machines" and, so modified, it appeared in 1865 as "the mechanical creation" in the reasoner, a paper then published in london by mr. g. j. holyoake. and his mind returned to the considerations which had determined him to decline to be ordained. in 1865 he printed anonymously a pamphlet which he had begun in new zealand, the result of his study of the greek testament, entitled the evidence for the resurrection of jesus christ as given by the four evangelists critically examined. after weighing this evidence and comparing one account with another, he came to the conclusion that jesus christ did not die upon the cross. it is improbable that a man officially executed should escape death, but the alternative, that a man actually dead should return to life, seemed to butler more improbable still and unsupported by such evidence as he found in the gospels. from this evidence he concluded that christ swooned and recovered consciousness after his body had passed into the keeping of joseph of arimathaea. he did not suppose fraud on the part of the first preachers of christianity; they sincerely believed that christ died and rose again. joseph and nicodemus probably knew the truth but kept silence. the idea of what might follow from belief in one single supposed miracle was never hereafter absent from butler's mind. in 1869, having been working too hard, he went abroad for a long change. on his way back, at the albergo la luna, in venice, he met an elderly russian lady in whose company he spent most of his time there. she was no doubt impressed by his versatility and charmed, as everyone always was, by his conversation and original views on the many subjects that interested him. we may be sure he told her all about himself and what he had done and was intending to do. at the end of his stay, when he was taking leave of her, she said: "et maintenant, monsieur, vous allez creer," meaning, as he understood her, that he had been looking long enough at the work of others and should now do something of his own. this sank into him and pained him. he was nearly thirty-five, and hitherto all had been admiration, vague aspiration and despair; he had produced in painting nothing but a few sketches and studies, and in literature only a few ephemeral articles, a collection of youthful letters and a pamphlet on the resurrection; moreover, to none of his work had anyone paid the slightest attention. this was a poor return for all the money which had been spent upon his education, as theobald would have said in the way of all flesh. he returned home dejected, but resolved that things should be different in the future. while in this frame of mind he received a visit from one of his new zealand friends, the late sir f. napier broome, afterwards governor of western australia, who incidentally suggested his rewriting his new zealand articles. the idea pleased him; it might not be creating, but at least it would be doing something. so he set to work on sundays and in the evenings, as relaxation from his profession of painting, and, taking his new zealand article, "darwin among the machines," and another, "the world of the unborn," as a starting point and helping himself with a few sentences from a first year in canterbury settlement, he gradually formed erewhon. he sent the ms. bit by bit, as it was written, to miss savage for her criticism and approval. he had the usual difficulty about finding a publisher. chapman and hall refused the book on the advice of george meredith, who was then their reader, and in the end he published it at his own expense through messrs. trubner. mr. sydney c. cockerell told me that in 1912 mr. bertram dobell, second-hand bookseller of charing cross road, offered a copy of erewhon for 1 pounds 10s.; it was thus described in his catalogue: "unique copy with the following note in the author's handwriting on the half-title: 'to miss e. m. a. savage this first copy of erewhon with the author's best thanks for many invaluable suggestions and corrections.'" when mr. cockerell inquired for the book it was sold. after miss savage's death in 1885 all butler's letters to her were returned to him, including the letter he wrote when he sent her this copy of erewhon. he gave her the first copy issued of all his books that were published in her lifetime, and, no doubt, wrote an inscription in each. if the present possessors of any of them should happen to read this sketch i hope they will communicate with me, as i should like to see these books. i should also like to see some numbers of the drawing-room gazette, which about this time belonged to or was edited by a mrs. briggs. miss savage wrote a review of erewhon, which appeared in the number for 8th june, 1872, and butler quoted a sentence from her review among the press notices in the second edition. she persuaded him to write for mrs. briggs notices of concerts at which handel's music was performed. in 1901 he made a note on one of his letters that he was thankful there were no copies of the drawing-room gazette in the british museum, meaning that he did not want people to read his musical criticisms; nevertheless, i hope some day to come across back numbers containing his articles. the opening of erewhon is based upon butler's colonial experiences; some of the descriptions remind one of passages in a first year in canterbury settlement, where he speaks of the excursions he made with doctor when looking for sheep-country. the walk over the range as far as the statues is taken from the upper rangitata district, with some alterations; but the walk down from the statues into erewhon is reminiscent of the leventina valley in the canton ticino. the great chords, which are like the music moaned by the statues, are from the prelude to the first of handel's trois lecons; he used to say: "one feels them in the diaphragm--they are, as it were, the groaning and labouring of all creation travailing together until now." there is a place in new zealand named erewhon, after the book; it is marked on the large maps, a township about fifty miles west of napier in the hawke bay province (north island). i am told that people in new zealand sometimes call their houses erewhon and occasionally spell the word erehwon which butler did not intend; he treated wh as a single letter, as one would treat th. among other traces of erewhon now existing in real life are butler's stones on the hokitika pass, so called because of a legend that they were in his mind when he described the statues. the book was translated into dutch in 1873 and into german in 1897. butler wrote to charles darwin to explain what he meant by the "book of the machines": "i am sincerely sorry that some of the critics should have thought i was laughing at your theory, a thing which i never meant to do and should be shocked at having done." soon after this butler was invited to down and paid two visits to mr. darwin there; he thus became acquainted with all the family and for some years was on intimate terms with mr. (now sir) francis darwin. it is easy to see by the light of subsequent events that we should probably have had something not unlike erewhon sooner or later, even without the russian lady and sir f. n. broome, to whose promptings, owing to a certain diffidence which never left him, he was perhaps inclined to attribute too much importance. but he would not have agreed with this view at the time; he looked upon himself as a painter and upon erewhon as an interruption. it had come, like one of those creatures from the land of the unborn, pestering him and refusing to leave him at peace until he consented to give it bodily shape. it was only a little one, and he saw no likelihood of its having any successors. so he satisfied its demands and then, supposing that he had written himself out, looked forward to a future in which nothing should interfere with the painting. nevertheless, when another of the unborn came teasing him he yielded to its importunities and allowed himself to become the author of the fair haven, which is his pamphlet on the resurrection, enlarged and preceded by a realistic memoir of the pseudonymous author, john pickard owen. in the library of st. john's college, cambridge, are two copies of the pamphlet with pages cut out; he used these pages in forming the ms. of the fair haven. to have published this book as by the author of erewhon would have been to give away the irony and satire. and he had another reason for not disclosing his name; he remembered that as soon as curiosity about the authorship of erewhon was satisfied, the weekly sales fell from fifty down to only two or three. but, as he always talked openly of whatever was in his mind, he soon let out the secret of the authorship of the fair haven, and it became advisable to put his name to a second edition. one result of his submitting the ms. of erewhon to miss savage was that she thought he ought to write a novel, and urged him to do so. i have no doubt that he wrote the memoir of john pickard owen with the idea of quieting miss savage and also as an experiment to ascertain whether he was likely to succeed with a novel. the result seems to have satisfied him, for, not long after the fair haven, he began the way of all flesh, sending the ms. to miss savage, as he did everything he wrote, for her approval and putting her into the book as ernest's aunt alethea. he continued writing it in the intervals of other work until her death in february, 1885, after which he did not touch it. it was published in 1903 by mr. r. a. streatfeild, his literary executor. soon after the fair haven butler began to be aware that his letter in the press, "darwin among the machines," was descending with further modifications and developing in his mind into a theory about evolution which took shape as life and habit; but the writing of this very remarkable and suggestive book was delayed and the painting interrupted by absence from england on business in canada. he had been persuaded by a college friend, a member of one of the great banking families, to call in his colonial mortgages and to put the money into several new companies. he was going to make thirty or forty per cent instead of only ten. one of these companies was a canadian undertaking, of which he became a director; it was necessary for someone to go to headquarters and investigate its affairs; he went, and was much occupied by the business for two or three years. by the beginning of 1876 he had returned finally to london, but most of his money was lost and his financial position for the next ten years caused him very serious anxiety. his personal expenditure was already so low that it was hardly possible to reduce it, and he set to work at his profession more industriously than ever, hoping to paint something that he could sell, his spare time being occupied with life and habit, which was the subject that really interested him more deeply than any other. following his letter in the press, wherein he had seen machines as in process of becoming animate, he went on to regard them as living organs and limbs which we had made outside ourselves. what would follow if we reversed this and regarded our limbs and organs as machines which we had manufactured as parts of our bodies? in the first place, how did we come to make them without knowing anything about it? but then, how comes anybody to do anything unconsciously? the answer usually would be: by habit. but can a man be said to do a thing by habit when he has never done it before? his ancestors have done it, but not he. can the habit have been acquired by them for his benefit? not unless he and his ancestors are the same person. perhaps, then, they are the same person. in february, 1876, partly to clear his mind and partly to tell someone, he wrote down his thoughts in a letter to his namesake, thomas william gale butler, a fellow art-student who was then in new zealand; so much of the letter as concerns the growth of his theory is given in the note-books of samuel butler (1912) and a resume of the theory will be found at the end of the last of the essays in this volume, "the deadlock in darwinism." in september, 1877, when life and habit was on the eve of publication, mr. francis darwin came to lunch with him in clifford's inn and, in course of conversation, told him that professor ray lankester had written something in nature about a lecture by dr. ewald hering of prague, delivered so long ago as 1870, "on memory as a universal function of organized matter." this rather alarmed butler, but he deferred looking up the reference until after december, 1877, when his book was out, and then, to his relief, he found that hering's theory was very similar to his own, so that, instead of having something sprung upon him which would have caused him to want to alter his book, he was supported. he at once wrote to the athenaeum, calling attention to hering's lecture, and then pursued his studies in evolution. life and habit was followed in 1879 by evolution old and new, wherein he compared the teleological or purposive view of evolution taken by buffon, dr. erasmus darwin, and lamarck with the view taken by charles darwin, and came to the conclusion that the old was better. but while agreeing with the earlier writers in thinking that the variations whose accumulation results in species were originally due to intelligence, he could not take the view that the intelligence resided in an external personal god. he had done with all that when he gave up the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead. he proposed to place the intelligence inside the creature ("the deadlock in darwinism" post). in 1880 he continued the subject by publishing unconscious memory. chapter iv of this book is concerned with a personal quarrel between himself and charles darwin which arose out of the publication by charles darwin of dr. krause's life of erasmus darwin. we need not enter into particulars here, the matter is fully dealt with in a pamphlet, charles darwin and samuel butler: a step towards reconciliation, which i wrote in 1911, the result of a correspondence between mr. francis darwin and myself. before this correspondence took place mr. francis darwin had made several public allusions to life and habit; and in september, 1908, in his inaugural address to the british association at dublin, he did butler the posthumous honour of quoting from his translation of hering's lecture "on memory," which is in unconscious memory, and of mentioning butler as having enunciated the theory contained in life and habit. in 1886 butler published his last book on evolution, luck or cunning as the main means of organic modification? his other contributions to the subject are some essays, written for the examiner in 1879, "god the known and god the unknown," which were re-published by mr. fifield in 1909, and the articles "the deadlock in darwinism" which appeared in the universal review in 1890 and are contained in this volume; some further notes on evolution will be found in the notebooks of samuel butler (1912). it was while he was writing life and habit that i first met him. for several years he had been in the habit of spending six or eight weeks of the summer in italy and the canton ticino, generally making faido his headquarters. many a page of his books was written while resting by the fountain of some subalpine village or waiting in the shade of the chestnuts till the light came so that he could continue a sketch. every year he returned home by a different route, and thus gradually became acquainted with every part of the canton and north italy. there is scarcely a town or village, a point of view, a building, statue or picture in all this country with which he was not familiar. in 1878 he happened to be on the sacro monte above varese at the time i took my holiday; there i joined him, and nearly every year afterwards we were in italy together. he was always a delightful companion, and perhaps at his gayest on these occasions. "a man's holiday," he would say, "is his garden," and he set out to enjoy himself and to make everyone about him enjoy themselves too. i told him the old schoolboy muddle about sir walter raleigh introducing tobacco and saying: "we shall this day light up such a fire in england as i trust shall never be put out." he had not heard it before and, though amused, appeared preoccupied, and perhaps a little jealous, during the rest of the evening. next morning, while he was pouring out his coffee, his eyes twinkled and he said, with assumed carelessness: "by the by, do you remember?--wasn't it columbus who bashed the egg down on the table and said 'eppur non si muove'?" he was welcome wherever he went, full of fun and ready to play while doing the honours of the country. many of the peasants were old friends, and every day we were sure to meet someone who remembered him. perhaps it would be an old woman labouring along under a burden; she would smile and stop, take his hand and tell him how happy she was to meet him again and repeat her thanks for the empty wine bottle he had given her after an out-of-door luncheon in her neighbourhood four or five years before. there was another who had rowed him many times across the lago di orta and had never been in a train but once in her life, when she went to novara to her son's wedding. he always remembered all about these people and asked how the potatoes were doing this year and whether the grandchildren were growing up into fine boys and girls, and he never forgot to inquire after the son who had gone to be a waiter in new york. at civiasco there is a restaurant which used to be kept by a jolly old lady, known for miles round as la martina; we always lunched with her on our way over the colma to and from varallo-sesia. on one occasion we were accompanied by two english ladies and, one being a teetotaller, butler maliciously instructed la martina to make the sabbaglione so that it should be forte and abbondante, and to say that the marsala, with which it was more than flavoured, was nothing but vinegar. la martina never forgot that when she looked in to see how things were going, he was pretending to lick the dish clean. these journeys provided the material for a book which he thought of calling "verdi prati," after one of handel's most beautiful songs; but he changed his mind, and it appeared at the end of 1881 as alps and sanctuaries of piedmont and the canton ticino with more than eighty illustrations, nearly all by butler. charles gogin made an etching for the frontispiece, drew some of the pictures, and put figures into others; half a dozen are mine. they were all redrawn in ink from sketches made on the spot, in oil, water-colour, and pencil. there were also many illustrations of another kind-extracts from handel's music, each chosen because butler thought it suitable to the spirit of the scene he wished to bring before the reader. the introduction concludes with these words: "i have chosen italy as my second country, and would dedicate this book to her as a thank-offering for the happiness she has afforded me." in the spring of 1883 he began to compose music, and in 1885 we published together an album of minuets, gavottes, and fugues. this led to our writing narcissus, which is an oratorio buffo in the handelian manner--that is as nearly so as we could make it. it is a mistake to suppose that all handel's oratorios are upon sacred subjects; some of them are secular. and not only so, but, whatever the subject, handel was never at a loss in treating anything that came into his words by way of allusion or illustration. as butler puts it in one of his sonnets: he who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound all thoughts and things in earth or heaven above-from fire and hailstones running along the ground to galatea grieving for her love-he who could show to all unseeing eyes glad shepherds watching o'er their flocks by night, or iphis angel-wafted to the skies, or jordan standing as an heap upright-and so on. but there is one subject which handel never treated--i mean the money market. perhaps he avoided it intentionally; he was twice bankrupt, and mr. r. a. streatfeild tells me that the british museum possesses a ms. letter from him giving instructions as to the payment of the dividends on 500 pounds south sea stock. let us hope he sold out before the bubble burst; if so, he was more fortunate than butler, who was at this time of his life in great anxiety about his own financial affairs. it seemed a pity that dr. morell had never offered handel some such words as these: the steadfast funds maintain their wonted state while all the other markets fluctuate. butler wondered whether handel would have sent the steadfast funds up above par and maintained them on an inverted pedal with all the other markets fluctuating iniquitously round them like the sheep that turn every one to his own way in the messiah. he thought something of the kind ought to have been done, and in the absence of handel and dr. morell we determined to write an oratorio that should attempt to supply the want. in order to make our libretto as plausible as possible, we adopted the dictum of monsieur jourdain's maitre a danser: "lorsqu'on a des personnes a faire parler en musique, il faut bien que, pour la vraisemblance, on donne dans la bergerie." narcissus is accordingly a shepherd in love with amaryllis; they come to london with other shepherds and lose their money in imprudent speculations on the stock exchange. in the second part the aunt and godmother of narcissus, having died at an advanced age worth one hundred thousand pounds, all of which she has bequeathed to her nephew and godson, the obstacle to his union with amaryllis is removed. the money is invested in consols and all ends happily. in december, 1886, butler's father died, and his financial difficulties ceased. he engaged alfred emery cathie as clerk, but made no other change, except that he bought a pair of new hair brushes and a larger wash-hand basin. any change in his mode of life was an event. when in london he got up at 6.30 in the summer and 7.30 in the winter, went into his sitting-room, lighted the fire, put the kettle on and returned to bed. in half an hour he got up again, fetched the kettle of hot water, emptied it into the cold water that was already in his bath, refilled the kettle and put it back on the fire. after dressing, he came into his sitting-room, made tea and cooked, in his dutch oven, something he had bought the day before. his laundress was an elderly woman, and he could not trouble her to come to his rooms so early in the morning; on the other hand, he could not stay in bed until he thought it right for her to go out; so it ended in his doing a great deal for himself. he then got his breakfast and read the times. at 9.30 alfred came, with whom he discussed anything requiring attention, and soon afterwards his laundress arrived. then he started to walk to the british museum, where he arrived about 10.30, every alternate morning calling at the butcher's in fetter lane to order his meat. in the reading room at the museum he sat at block b ("b for butler") and spent an hour "posting his notes"--that is reconsidering, rewriting, amplifying, shortening, and indexing the contents of the little note-book he always carried in his pocket. after the notes he went on till 1.30 with whatever book he happened to be writing. on three days of the week he dined in a restaurant on his way home, and on the other days he dined in his chambers where his laundress had cooked his dinner. at two o'clock alfred returned (having been home to dinner with his wife and children) and got tea ready for him. he then wrote letters and attended to his accounts till 3.45, when he smoked his first cigarette. he used to smoke a great deal, but, believing it to be bad for him, took to cigarettes instead of pipes, and gradually smoked less and less, making it a rule not to begin till some particular hour, and pushing this hour later and later in the day, till it settled itself at 3.45. there was no water laid on in his rooms, and every day he fetched one can full from the tap in the court, alfred fetching the rest. when anyone expostulated with him about cooking his own breakfast and fetching his own water, he replied that it was good for him to have a change of occupation. this was partly the fact, but the real reason, which he could not tell everyone, was that he shrank from inconveniencing anybody; he always paid more than was necessary when anything was done for him, and was not happy then unless he did some of the work himself. at 5.30 he got his evening meal, he called it his tea, and it was little more than a facsimile of breakfast. alfred left in time to post the letters before six. butler then wrote music till about 8, when he came to see me in staple inn, returning to clifford's inn by about 10. after a light supper, latterly not more than a piece of toast and a glass of milk, he played one game of his own particular kind of patience, prepared his breakfast things and fire ready for the next morning, smoked his seventh and last cigarette, and went to bed at eleven o'clock. he was fond of the theatre, but avoided serious pieces. he preferred to take his shakespeare from the book, finding that the spirit of the plays rather evaporated under modern theatrical treatment. in one of his books he brightens up the old illustration of hamlet without the prince of denmark by putting it thus: "if the character of hamlet be entirely omitted, the play must suffer, even though henry irving himself be cast for the title-role." anyone going to the theatre in this spirit would be likely to be less disappointed by performances that were comic or even frankly farcical. latterly, when he grew slightly deaf, listening to any kind of piece became too much of an effort; nevertheless, he continued to the last the habit of going to one pantomime every winter. there were about twenty houses where he visited, but he seldom accepted an invitation to dinner--it upset the regularity of his life; besides, he belonged to no club and had no means of returning hospitality. when two colonial friends called unexpectedly about noon one day, soon after he settled in london, he went to the nearest cook-shop in fetter lane and returned carrying a dish of hot roast pork and greens. this was all very well once in a way, but not the sort of thing to be repeated indefinitely. on thursdays, instead of going to the museum, he often took a day off, going into the country sketching or walking, and on sundays, whatever the weather, he nearly always went into the country walking; his map of the district for thirty miles round london is covered all over with red lines showing where he had been. he sometimes went out of town from saturday to monday, and for over twenty years spent christmas at boulogne-sur-mer. there is a sacro monte at varallo-sesia with many chapels, each containing life-sized statues and frescoes illustrating the life of christ. butler had visited this sanctuary repeatedly, and was a great favourite with the townspeople, who knew that he was studying the statues and frescoes in the chapels, and who remembered that in the preface to alps and sanctuaries he had declared his intention of writing about them. in august, 1887, the varallesi brought matters to a head by giving him a civic dinner on the mountain. everyone was present, there were several speeches and, when we were coming down the slippery mountain path after it was all over, he said to me: "you know, there's nothing for it now but to write that book about the sacro monte at once. it must be the next thing i do." accordingly, on returning home, he took up photography and, immediately after christmas, went back to varallo to photograph the statues and collect material. much research was necessary and many visits to out-of-the-way sanctuaries which might have contained work by the sculptor tabachetti, whom he was rescuing from oblivion and identifying with the flemish jean de wespin. one of these visits, made after his book was published, forms the subject of "the sanctuary of montrigone," reproduced in this volume. ex voto, the book about varallo, appeared in 1888, and an italian translation by cavaliere angelo rizzetti was published at novara in 1894. "quis desiderio . . .?" the second essay in this volume, was developed in 1888 from something in a letter from miss savage nearly ten years earlier. on the 15th of december, 1878, in acknowledging this letter, butler wrote: i am sure that any tree or flower nursed by miss cobbe would be the _very_ first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before they ever came to know her _well_. the sight of the brass buttons on her pea-jacket would settle them out of hand. there was an enclosure in miss savage's letter, but it is unfortunately lost; i suppose it must have been a newspaper cutting with an allusion to moore's poem and perhaps a portrait of miss frances power cobbe--pea-jacket, brass buttons, and all. on the 10th november, 1879, miss savage, having been ill, wrote to butler: i have been dipping into the books of moses, being sometimes at a loss for something to read while shut up in my apartment. you know that i have never read the bible much, consequently there is generally something of a novelty that i hit on. as you do know your bible well, perhaps you can tell me what became of aaron. the account given of his end in numbers xx is extremely ambiguous and unsatisfactory. evidently he did not come by his death fairly, but whether he was murdered secretly for the furtherance of some private ends, or publicly in a state sacrifice, i can't make out. i myself rather incline to the former opinion, but i should like to know what the experts say about it. a very nice, exciting little tale might be made out of it in the style of the police stories in all the year round called "the mystery of mount hor or what became of aaron?" don't forget to write to me. butler's people had been suggesting that he should try to earn money by writing in magazines, and miss savage was falling in with the idea and offering a practical suggestion. i do not find that he had anything to tell her about the death of aaron. on 23rd march, 1880, she wrote: dear mr. butler: read the subjoined poem of wordsworth and let me know what you understand its meaning to be. of course i have my opinion, which i think of communicating to the wordsworth society. you can belong to that society for the small sum of 2/6 per annum. i think of joining because it is cheap. "the subjoined poem" was the one beginning: "she dwelt among the untrodden ways," and butler made this note on the letter: to the foregoing letter i answered that i concluded miss savage meant to imply that wordsworth had murdered lucy in order to escape a prosecution for breach of promise. miss savage to butler. 2nd april, 1880: my dear mr. butler: i don't think you see all that i do in the poem, and i am afraid that the suggestion of a dark secret in the poet's life is not so very obvious after all. i was hoping you would propose to devote yourself for a few months to reading the excursion, his letters, &c., with a view to following up the clue, and i am disappointed though, to say the truth, the idea of a _crime_ had not flashed upon me when i wrote to you. how well the works of _great_ men repay attention and study! but you, who know your bible so well, how was it that you did not detect the plagiarism in the last verse? just refer to the account of the disappearance of aaron (i have not a bible at hand, we want one sadly in the club) but i am sure that the words are identical [i cannot see what miss savage meant. 1901. s. b.] cassell's magazine have offered a prize for setting the poem to music, and i fell to thinking how it could be treated musically, and so came to a right comprehension of it. although butler, when editing miss savage's letters in 1901, could not see the resemblance between wordsworth's poem and numbers xx., he at once saw a strong likeness between lucy and moore's heroine whom he had been keeping in an accessible pigeon-hole of his memory ever since his letter about miss frances power cobbe. he now sent lucy to keep her company and often spoke of the pair of them as probably the two most disagreeable young women in english literature--an opinion which he must have expressed to miss savage and with which i have no doubt she agreed. in the spring of 1888, on his return from photographing the statues at varallo, he found, to his disgust, that the authorities of the british museum had removed frost's lives of eminent christians from its accustomed shelf in the reading room. soon afterwards harry quilter asked him to write for the universal review and he responded with "quis desiderio . . .?" in this essay he compares himself to wordsworth and dwells on the points of resemblance between lucy and the book of whose assistance he had now been deprived in a passage which echoes the opening of chapter v of ex voto, where he points out the resemblances between varallo and jerusalem. early in 1888 the leading members of the shrewsbury archaeological society asked butler to write a memoir of his grandfather and of his father for their quarterly journal. this he undertook to do when he should have finished ex voto. in december, 1888, his sisters, with the idea of helping him to write the memoir, gave him his grandfather's correspondence, which extended from 1790 to 1839. on looking over these very voluminous papers he became penetrated with an almost chinese reverence for his ancestor and, after getting the archaeological society to absolve him from his promise to write the memoir, set about a full life of dr. butler, which was not published till 1896. the delay was caused partly by the immense quantity of documents he had to sift and digest, the number of people he had to consult and the many letters he had to write, and partly by something that arose out of narcissus, which we published in june, 1888. butler was not satisfied with having written only half of this work; he wanted it to have a successor, so that by adding his two halves together, he could say he had written a whole handelian oratorio. while staying with his sisters at shrewsbury with this idea in his mind, he casually took up a book by alfred ainger about charles lamb and therein stumbled upon something about the odyssey. it was years since he had looked at the poem, but, from what he remembered, he thought it might provide a suitable subject for musical treatment. he did not, however, want to put dr. butler aside, so i undertook to investigate. it is stated on the title-page of both narcissus and ulysses that the words were written and the music composed by both of us. as to the music, each piece bears the initials of the one who actually composed it. as to the words, it was necessary first to settle some general scheme and this, in the case of narcissus, grew in the course of conversation. the scheme of ulysses was constructed in a more formal way and butler had perhaps rather less to do with it. we were bound by the odyssey, which is, of course, too long to be treated fully, and i selected incidents that attracted me and settled the order of the songs and choruses. for this purpose, as i out-shakespeare shakespeare in the smallness of my greek, i used the adventures of ulysses by charles lamb, which we should have known nothing about but for ainger's book. butler acquiesced in my proposals, but, when it came to the words themselves, he wrote practically all the libretto, as he had done in the case of narcissus; i did no more than suggest a few phrases and a few lines here and there. we had sent narcissus for review to the papers, and, as a consequence, about this time, made the acquaintance of mr. j. a. fuller maitland, then musical critic of the times; he introduced us to that learned musician william smith rockstro, under whom we studied medieval counterpoint while composing ulysses. we had already made some progress with it when it occurred to butler that it would not take long and might, perhaps, be safer if he were to look at the original poem, just to make sure that lamb had not misled me. not having forgotten all his greek, he bought a copy of the odyssey and was so fascinated by it that he could not put it down. when he came to the phoeacian episode of ulysses at scheria he felt he must be reading the description of a real place and that something in the personality of the author was eluding him. for months he was puzzled, and, to help in clearing up the mystery, set about translating the poem. in august, 1891, he had preceded me to chiavenna and on a letter i wrote him, telling him when to expect me, he made this note: it was during the few days i was at chiavenna (at the hotel grotta crimee) that i hit upon the feminine authorship of the odyssey. i did not find out its having been written at trapani till january, 1892. he suspected that the authoress in describing both scheria and ithaca was drawing from her native country and searched on the admiralty charts for the features enumerated in the poem; this led him to the conclusion that the country could only be trapani, mount eryx, and the aegadean islands. as soon as he could after this discovery he went to sicily to study the locality and found it in all respects suitable for his theory; indeed, it was astonishing how things kept turning up to support his view. it is all in his book the authoress of the odyssey, published in 1897 and dedicated to his friend cavaliere biagio ingroja of calatafimi. his first visit to sicily was in 1892, in august--a hot time of the year, but it was his custom to go abroad in the autumn. he returned to sicily every year (except one), but latterly went in the spring. he made many friends all over the island, and after his death the people of calatafimi called a street by his name, the via samuel butler, "thus," as ingroja wrote when he announced the event to me, "honouring a great man's memory, handing down his name to posterity, and doing homage to the friendly english nation." besides showing that the odyssey was written by a woman in sicily and translating the poem into english prose, he also translated the iliad, and, in march, 1895, went to greece and the troad to see the country therein described, where he found nothing to cause him to disagree with the received theories. it has been said of him in a general way that the fact of an opinion being commonly held was enough to make him profess the opposite. it was enough to make him examine the opinion for himself, when it affected any of the many subjects which interested him, and if, after giving it his best attention, he found it did not hold water, then no weight of authority could make him say that it did. this matter of the geography of the iliad is only one among many commonly received opinions which he examined for himself and found no reason to dispute; on these he considered it unnecessary to write. it is characteristic of his passion for doing things thoroughly that he learnt nearly the whole of the odyssey and the iliad by heart. he had a pickering copy of each poem, which he carried in his pocket and referred to in railway trains, both in england and italy, when saying the poems over to himself. these two little books are now in the library of st. john's college, cambridge. he was, however, disappointed to find that he could not retain more than a book or two at a time and that, on learning more, he forgot what he had learnt first; but he was about sixty at the time. shakespeare's sonnets, on which he published a book in 1899, gave him less trouble in this respect; he knew them all by heart, and also their order, and one consequence of this was that he wrote some sonnets in the shakespearian form. he found this intimate knowledge of the poet's work more useful for his purpose than reading commentaries by those who were less familiar with it. "a commentary on a poem," he would say, "may be useful as material on which to form an estimate of the commentator, but the poem itself is the most important document you can consult, and it is impossible to know it too intimately if you want to form an opinion about it and its author." it was always the author, the work of god, that interested him more than the book--the work of man; the painter more than the picture; the composer more than the music. "if a writer, a painter, or a musician makes me feel that he held those things to be lovable which i myself hold to be lovable i am satisfied; art is only interesting in so far as it reveals the personality of the artist." handel was, of course, "the greatest of all musicians." among the painters he chiefly loved giovanni bellini, carpaccio, gaudenzio ferrari, rembrandt, holbein, velasquez, and de hooghe; in poetry shakespeare, homer, and the authoress of the odyssey; and in architecture the man, whoever he was, who designed the temple of neptune at paestum. life being short, he did not see why he should waste any of it in the company of inferior people when he had these. and he treated those he met in daily life in the same spirit: it was what he found them to be that attracted or repelled him; what others thought about them was of little or no consequence. and now, at the end of his life, his thoughts reverted to the two subjects which had occupied him more than thirty years previously-namely, erewhon and the evidence for the death and resurrection of jesus christ. the idea of what might follow from belief in one single supposed miracle had been slumbering during all those years and at last rose again in the form of a sequel to erewhon. in erewhon revisited mr. higgs returns to find that the erewhonians now believe in him as a god in consequence of the supposed miracle of his going up in a balloon to induce his heavenly father to send the rain. mr. higgs and the reader know that there was no miracle in the case, but butler wanted to show that whether it was a miracle or not did not signify provided that the people believed it to be one. and so mr. higgs is present in the temple which is being dedicated to him and his worship. the existence of his son george was an after-thought and gave occasion for the second leading idea of the book--the story of a father trying to win the love of a hitherto unknown son by risking his life in order to show himself worthy of it--and succeeding. butler's health had already begun to fail, and when he started for sicily on good friday, 1902, it was for the last time: he knew he was unfit to travel, but was determined to go, and was looking forward to meeting mr. and mrs. j. a. fuller maitland, whom he was to accompany over the odyssean scenes at trapani and mount eryx. but he did not get beyond palermo; there he was so much worse that he could not leave his room. in a few weeks he was well enough to be removed to naples, and alfred went out and brought him home to london. he was taken to a nursing home in st. john's wood where he lay for a month, attended by his old friend dr. dudgeon, and where he died on the 18th june, 1902. there was a great deal he still wanted to do. he had intended to revise the way of all flesh, to write a book about tabachetti, and to publish a new edition of ex voto with the mistakes corrected. also he wished to reconsider the articles reprinted in this volume and was looking forward to painting more sketches and composing more music. while lying ill and very feeble within a few days of the end, and not knowing whether it was to be the end or not, he said to me: "i am much better to-day. i don't feel at all as though i were going to die. of course, it will be all wrong if i do get well, for there is my literary position to be considered. first i write erewhon--that is my opening subject; then, after modulating freely through all my other books and the music and so on, i return gracefully to my original key and write erewhon revisited. obviously, now is the proper moment to come to a full close, make my bow and retire; but i believe i am getting well after all. it's very inartistic, but i cannot help it." some of his readers complain that they often do not know whether he is serious or jesting. he wrote of lord beaconsfield: "earnestness was his greatest danger, but if he did not quite overcome it (as indeed who can? it is the last enemy that shall be subdued), he managed to veil it with a fair amount of success." to veil his own earnestness he turned most naturally to humour, employing it in a spirit of reverence, as all the great humorists have done, to express his deepest and most serious convictions. he was aware that he ran the risk of being misunderstood by some, but he also knew that it is useless to try to please all, and, like mozart, he wrote to please himself and a few intimate friends. i cannot speak at length of his kindness, consideration, and sympathy; nor of his generosity, the extent of which was very great and can never be known--it was sometimes exercised in unexpected ways, as when he gave my laundress a shilling because it was "such a beastly foggy morning"; nor of his slightly archaic courtliness-unless among people he knew well he usually left the room backwards, bowing to the company; nor of his punctiliousness, industry, and painstaking attention to detail--he kept accurate accounts not only of all his property by double entry but also of his daily expenditure, which he balanced to a halfpenny every evening, and his handwriting, always beautiful and legible, was more so at sixty-six than at twenty-six; nor of his patience and cheerfulness during years of anxiety when he had few to sympathize with him; nor of the strange mixture of simplicity and shrewdness that caused one who knew him well to say: "ii sait tout; il ne sait rien; il est poete." epitaphs always fascinated him, and formerly he used to say he should like to be buried at langar and to have on his tombstone the subject of the last of handel's six great fugues. he called this "the old man fugue," and said it was like an epitaph composed for himself by one who was very old and tired and sorry for things; and he made young ernest pontifex in the way of all flesh offer it to edward overton as an epitaph for his aunt alethea. butler, however, left off wanting any tombstone long before he died. in accordance with his wish his body was cremated, and a week later alfred and i returned to woking and buried his ashes under the shrubs in the garden of the crematorium, with nothing to mark the spot. the humour of homer {59} the first of the two great poems commonly ascribed to homer is called the iliad--a title which we may be sure was not given it by the author. it professes to treat of a quarrel between agamemnon and achilles that broke out while the greeks were besieging the city of troy, and it does, indeed, deal largely with the consequences of this quarrel; whether, however, the ostensible subject did not conceal another that was nearer the poet's heart--i mean the last days, death, and burial of hector--is a point that i cannot determine. nor yet can i determine how much of the iliad as we now have it is by homer, and how much by a later writer or writers. this is a very vexed question, but i myself believe the iliad to be entirely by a single poet. the second poem commonly ascribed to the same author is called the odyssey. it deals with the adventures of ulysses during his ten years of wandering after troy had fallen. these two works have of late years been believed to be by different authors. the iliad is now generally held to be the older work by some one or two hundred years. the leading ideas of the iliad are love, war, and plunder, though this last is less insisted on than the other two. the key-note is struck with a woman's charms, and a quarrel among men for their possession. it is a woman who is at the bottom of the trojan war itself. woman throughout the iliad is a being to be loved, teased, laughed at, and if necessary carried off. we are told in one place of a fine bronze cauldron for heating water which was worth twenty oxen, whereas a few lines lower down a good serviceable maid-of-allwork is valued at four oxen. i think there is a spice of malicious humour in this valuation, and am confirmed in this opinion by noting that though woman in the iliad is on one occasion depicted as a wife so faithful and affectionate that nothing more perfect can be found either in real life or fiction, yet as a general rule she is drawn as teasing, scolding, thwarting, contradicting, and hoodwinking the sex that has the effrontery to deem itself her lord and master. whether or no this view may have arisen from any domestic difficulties between homer and his wife is a point which again i find it impossible to determine. we cannot refrain from contemplating such possibilities. if we are to be at home with homer there must be no sitting on the edge of one's chair dazzled by the splendour of his reputation. he was after all only a literary man, and those who occupy themselves with letters must approach him as a very honoured member of their own fraternity, but still as one who must have felt, thought, and acted much as themselves. he struck oil, while we for the most part succeed in boring only; still we are his literary brethren, and if we would read his lines intelligently we must also read between them. that one so shrewd, and yet a dreamer of such dreams as have been vouchsafed to few indeed besides himself--that one so genially sceptical, and so given to looking into the heart of a matter, should have been in such perfect harmony with his surroundings as to think himself in the best of all possible worlds--this is not believable. the world is always more or less out of joint to the poet--generally more so; and unfortunately he always thinks it more or less his business to set it right--generally more so. we are all of us more or less poets--generally, indeed, less so; still we feel and think, and to think at all is to be out of harmony with much that we think about. we may be sure, then, that homer had his full share of troubles, and also that traces of these abound up and down his work if we could only identify them, for everything that everyone does is in some measure a portrait of himself; but here comes the difficulty--not to read between the lines, not to try and detect the hidden features of the writer--this is to be a dull, unsympathetic, incurious reader; and on the other hand to try and read between them is to be in danger of running after every will o' the wisp that conceit may raise for our delusion. i believe it will help you better to understand the broad humour of the iliad, which we shall presently reach, if you will allow me to say a little more about the general characteristics of the poem. over and above the love and war that are his main themes, there is another which the author never loses sight of--i mean distrust and dislike of the ideas of his time as regards the gods and omens. no poet ever made gods in his own image more defiantly than the author of the iliad. in the likeness of man created he them, and the only excuse for him is that he obviously desired his readers not to take them seriously. this at least is the impression he leaves upon his reader, and when so great a man as homer leaves an impression it must be presumed that he does so intentionally. it may be almost said that he has made the gods take the worse, not the better, side of man's nature upon them, and to be in all respects as we ourselves--yet without virtue. it should be noted, however, that the gods on the trojan side are treated far more leniently than those who help the greeks. the chief gods on the grecian side are juno, minerva, and neptune. juno, as you will shortly see, is a scolding wife, who in spite of all jove's bluster wears the breeches, or tries exceedingly hard to do so. minerva is an angry termagant--mean, mischief-making, and vindictive. she begins by pulling achilles' hair, and later on she knocks the helmet from off the head of mars. she hates venus, and tells the grecian hero diomede that he had better not wound any of the other gods, but that he is to hit venus if he can, which he presently does 'because he sees that she is feeble and not like minerva or bellona.' neptune is a bitter hater. apollo, mars, venus, diana, and jove, so far as his wife will let him, are on the trojan side. these, as i have said, meet with better, though still somewhat contemptuous, treatment at the poet's hand. jove, however, is being mocked and laughed at from first to last, and if one moral can be drawn from the iliad more clearly than another, it is that he is only to be trusted to a very limited extent. homer's position, in fact, as regards divine interference is the very opposite of david's. david writes, "put not your trust in princes nor in any child of man; there is no sure help but from the lord." with homer it is, "put not your trust in jove neither in any omen from heaven; there is but one good omen--to fight for one's country. fortune favours the brave; heaven helps those who help themselves." the god who comes off best is vulcan, the lame, hobbling, old blacksmith, who is the laughing-stock of all the others, and whose exquisitely graceful skilful workmanship forms such an effective contrast to the uncouth exterior of the workman. him, as a man of genius and an artist, and furthermore as a somewhat despised artist, homer treats, if with playfulness, still with respect, in spite of the fact that circumstances have thrown him more on the side of the greeks than of the trojans, with whom i understand homer's sympathies mainly to lie. the poet either dislikes music or is at best insensible to it. great poets very commonly are so. achilles, indeed, does on one occasion sing to his own accompaniment on the lyre, but we are not told that it was any pleasure to hear him, and patroclus, who was in the tent at the time, was not enjoying it; he was only waiting for achilles to leave off. but though not fond of music, homer has a very keen sense of the beauties of nature, and is constantly referring both in and out of season to all manner of homely incidents that are as familiar to us as to himself. sparks in the train of a shooting-star; a cloud of dust upon a high road; foresters going out to cut wood in a forest; the shrill cry of the cicale; children making walls of sand on the sea-shore, or teasing wasps when they have found a wasps' nest; a poor but very honest woman who gains a pittance for her children by selling wool, and weighs it very carefully; a child clinging to its mother's dress and crying to be taken up and carried--none of these things escape him. neither in the iliad nor the odyssey do we ever receive so much as a hint as to the time of year at which any of the events described are happening; but on one occasion the author of the iliad really has told us that it was a very fine day, and this not from a business point of view, but out of pure regard to the weather for its own sake. with one more observation i will conclude my preliminary remarks about the iliad. i cannot find its author within the four corners of the work itself. i believe the writer of the odyssey to appear in the poem as a prominent and very fascinating character whom we shall presently meet, but there is no one in the iliad on whom i can put my finger with even a passing idea that he may be the author. still, if under some severe penalty i were compelled to find him, i should say it was just possible that he might consider his own lot to have been more or less like that which he forecasts for astyanax, the infant son of hector. at any rate his intimate acquaintance with the topography of troy, which is now well ascertained, and still more his obvious attempt to excuse the non-existence of a great wall which, according to his story, ought to be there and which he knew had never existed, so that no trace could remain, while there were abundant traces of all the other features he describes--these facts convince me that he was in all probability a native of the troad, or country round troy. his plausibly concealed trojan sympathies, and more particularly the aggravated exaggeration with which the flight of hector is described, suggest to me, coming as they do from an astute and humorous writer, that he may have been a trojan, at any rate by the mother's side, made captive, enslaved, compelled to sing the glories of his captors, and determined so to overdo them that if his masters cannot see through the irony others sooner or later shall. this, however, is highly speculative, and there are other views that are perhaps more true, but which i cannot now consider. i will now ask you to form your own opinions as to whether homer is or is not a shrewd and humorous writer. achilles, whose quarrel with agamemnon is the ostensible subject of the poem, is son to a marine goddess named thetis, who had rendered jove an important service at a time when he was in great difficulties. achilles, therefore, begs his mother thetis to go up to jove and ask him to let the trojans discomfit the greeks for a time, so that agamemnon may find he cannot get on without achilles' help, and may thus be brought to reason. thetis tells her son that for the moment there is nothing to be done, inasmuch as the gods are all of them away from home. they are gone to pay a visit to oceanus in central africa, and will not be back for another ten or twelve days; she will see what can be done, however, as soon as ever they return. this in due course she does, going up to olympus and laying hold of jove by the knee and by the chin. i may say in passing that it is still a common italian form of salutation to catch people by the chin. twice during the last summer i have been so seized in token of affectionate greeting, once by a lady and once by a gentleman. thetis tells her tale to jove, and concludes by saying that he is to say straight out 'yes' or 'no' whether he will do what she asks. of course he can please himself, but she should like to know how she stands. "it will be a plaguy business," answers jove, "for me to offend juno and put up with all the bitter tongue she will give me. as it is, she is always nagging at me and saying i help the trojans, still, go away now at once before she finds out that you have been here, and leave the rest to me. see, i nod my head to you, and this is the most solemn form of covenant into which i can enter. i never go back upon it, nor shilly-shally with anybody when i have once nodded my head." which, by the way, amounts to an admission that he does shilly-shally sometimes. then he frowns and nods, shaking the hair on his immortal head till olympus rocks again. thetis goes off under the sea and jove returns to his own palace. all the other gods stand up when they see him coming, for they do not dare to remain sitting while he passes, but juno knows he has been hatching mischief against the greeks with thetis, so she attacks him in the following words: "you traitorous scoundrel," she exclaims, "which of the gods have you been taking into your counsel now? you are always trying to settle matters behind my back, and never tell me, if you can help it, a single word about your designs." "'juno,' replied the father of gods and men, 'you must not expect to be told everything that i am thinking about: you are my wife, it is true, but you might not be able always to understand my meaning; in so far as it is proper for you to know of my intentions you are the first person to whom i communicate them either among the gods or among mankind, but there are certain points which i reserve entirely for myself, and the less you try to pry into these, or meddle with them, the better for you.'" "'dread son of saturn,' answered juno, 'what in the world are you talking about? i meddle and pry? no one, i am sure, can have his own way in everything more absolutely than you have. still i have a strong misgiving that the old merman's daughter thetis has been talking you over. i saw her hugging your knees this very self-same morning, and i suspect you have been promising her to kill any number of people down at the grecian ships, in order to gratify achilles.'" "'wife,' replied jove, 'i can do nothing but you suspect me. you will not do yourself any good, for the more you go on like that the more i dislike you, and it may fare badly with you. if i mean to have it so, i mean to have it so, you had better therefore sit still and hold your tongue as i tell you, for if i once begin to lay my hands about you, there is not a god in heaven who will be of the smallest use to you.' "when juno heard this she thought it better to submit, so she sat down without a word, but all the gods throughout jove's mansion were very much perturbed. presently the cunning workman vulcan tried to pacify his mother juno, and said, 'it will never do for you two to go on quarrelling and setting heaven in an uproar about a pack of mortals. the thing will not bear talking about. if such counsels are to prevail a god will not be able to get his dinner in peace. let me then advise my mother (and i am sure it is her own opinion) to make her peace with my dear father, lest he should scold her still further, and spoil our banquet; for if he does wish to turn us all out there can be no question about his being perfectly able to do so. say something civil to him, therefore, and then perhaps he will not hurt us.' "as he spoke he took a large cup of nectar and put it into his mother's hands, saying, 'bear it, my dear mother, and make the best of it. i love you dearly and should be very sorry to see you get a thrashing. i should not be able to help you, for my father jove is not a safe person to differ from. you know once before when i was trying to help you he caught me by the foot and chucked me from the heavenly threshold. i was all day long falling from morn to eve, but at sunset i came to ground on the island of lemnos, and there was very little life left in me, till the sintians came and tended me.' "on this juno smiled, and with a laugh took the cup from her son's hand. then vulcan went about among all other gods drawing nectar for them from his goblet, and they laughed immoderately as they saw him bustling about the heavenly mansion." then presently the gods go home to bed, each one in his own house that vulcan had cunningly built for him or her. finally jove himself went to the bed which he generally occupied; and jove his wife went with him. there is another quarrel between jove and juno at the beginning of the fourth book. the gods are sitting on the golden floor of jove's palace and drinking one another's health in the nectar with which hebe from time to time supplies them. jove begins to tease juno, and to provoke her with some sarcastic remarks that are pointed at her though not addressed to her directly. "'menelaus,' he exclaimed, 'has two good friends among the goddesses, juno and minerva, but they only sit still and look on, while venus on the other hand takes much better care of paris, and defends him when he is in danger. she has only just this moment been rescuing him when he made sure he was at death's door, for the victory really did lie with menelaus. we must think what we are to do about all this. shall we renew strife between the combatants or shall we make them friends again? i think the best plan would be for the city of priam to remain unpillaged, but for menelaus to have his wife helen sent back to him.' "minerva and juno groaned in spirit when they heard this. they were sitting side by side, and thinking what mischief they could do to the trojans. minerva for her part said not one word, but sat scowling at her father, for she was in a furious passion with him, but juno could not contain herself, so she said-"'what, pray, son of saturn, is all this about? is my trouble then to go for nothing, and all the pains that i have taken, to say nothing of my horses, and the way we have sweated and toiled to get the people together against priam and his children? you can do as you please, but you must not expect all of us to agree with you.' "and jove answered, 'wife, what harm have priam and priam's children done you that you rage so furiously against them, and want to sack their city? will nothing do for you but you must eat priam with his sons and all the trojans into the bargain? have it your own way then, for i will not quarrel with you--only remember what i tell you: if at any time i want to sack a city that belongs to any friend of yours, it will be no use your trying to hinder me, you will have to let me do it, for i only yield to you now with the greatest reluctance. if there was one city under the sun which i respected more than another it was troy with its king and people. my altars there have never been without the savour of fat or of burnt sacrifice and all my dues were paid.' "'my own favourite cities,' answered juno, 'are argos, sparta, and mycenae. sack them whenever you may be displeased with them. i shall not make the smallest protest against your doing so. it would be no use if i did, for you are much stronger than i am, only i will not submit to seeing my own work wasted. i am a goddess of the same race as yourself. i am saturn's eldest daughter and am not only nearly related to you in blood, but i am wife to yourself, and you are king over the gods. let it be a case, then, of give and take between us, and the other gods will follow our lead. tell minerva, therefore, to go down at once and set the greeks and trojans by the ears again, and let her so manage it that the trojans shall break their oaths and be the aggressors.'" this is the very thing to suit minerva, so she goes at once and persuades the trojans to break their oath. in a later book we are told that jove has positively forbidden the gods to interfere further in the struggle. juno therefore determines to hoodwink him. first she bolted herself inside her own room on the top of mount ida and had a thorough good wash. then she scented herself, brushed her golden hair, put on her very best dress and all her jewels. when she had done this, she went to venus and besought her for the loan of her charms. "'you must not be angry with me, venus,' she began, 'for being on the grecian side while you are yourself on the trojan; but you know every one falls in love with you at once, and i want you to lend me some of your attractions. i have to pay a visit at the world's end to oceanus and mother tethys. they took me in and were very good to me when jove turned saturn out of heaven and shut him up under the sea. they have been quarrelling this long time past and will not speak to one another. so i must go and see them, for if i can only make them friends again i am sure that they will be grateful to me for ever afterwards.'" venus thought this reasonable, so she took off her girdle and lent it to juno, an act by the way which argues more good nature than prudence on her part. then juno goes down to thrace, and in search of sleep the brother of death. she finds him and shakes hands with him. then she tells him she is going up to olympus to make love to jove, and that while she is occupying his attention sleep is to send him off into a deep slumber. sleep says he dares not do it. he would lull any of the other gods, but juno must remember that she had got him into a great scrape once before in this way, and jove hurled the gods about all over the palace, and would have made an end of him once for all, if he had not fled under the protection of night, whom jove did not venture to offend. juno bribes him, however, with a promise that if he will consent she will marry him to the youngest of the graces, pasithea. on this he yields; the pair then go up to the top of mount ida, and sleep gets into a high pine tree just in front of jove. as soon as jove sees juno, armed as she for the moment was with all the attractions of venus, he falls desperately in love with her, and says she is the only goddess he ever really loved. true, there had been the wife of ixion and danae, and europa and semele, and alcmena, and latona, not to mention herself in days gone by, but he never loved any of these as he now loved her, in spite of his having been married to her for so many years. what then does she want? juno tells him the same rigmarole about oceanus and mother tethys that she had told venus, and when she has done jove tries to embrace her. "what," exclaims juno, "kiss me in such a public place as the top of mount ida! impossible! i could never show my face in olympus again, but i have a private room of my own and"--"what nonsense, my love!" exclaims the sire of gods and men as he catches her in his arms. on this sleep sends him into a deep slumber, and juno then sends sleep to bid neptune go off to help the greeks at once. when jove awakes and finds the trick that has been played upon him, he is very angry and blusters a good deal as usual, but somehow or another it turns out that he has got to stand it and make the best of it. in an earlier book he has said that he is not surprised at anything juno may do, for she always has crossed him and always will; but he cannot put up with such disobedience from his own daughter minerva. somehow or another, however, here too as usual it turns out that he has got to stand it. "and then," minerva exclaims in yet another place (viii. 373), "i suppose he will be calling me his grey-eyed darling again, presently." towards the end of the poem the gods have a set-to among themselves. minerva sends mars sprawling, venus comes to his assistance, but minerva knocks her down and leaves her. neptune challenges apollo, but apollo says it is not proper for a god to fight his own uncle, and declines the contest. his sister diana taunts him with cowardice, so juno grips her by the wrist and boxes her ears till she writhes again. latona, the mother of apollo and diana, then challenges mercury, but mercury says that he is not going to fight with any of jove's wives, so if she chooses to say she has beaten him she is welcome to do so. then latona picks up poor diana's bow and arrows that have fallen from her during her encounter with juno, and diana meanwhile flies up to the knees of her father jove, sobbing and sighing till her ambrosial robe trembles all around her. "jove drew her towards him, and smiling pleasantly exclaimed, 'my dear child, which of the heavenly beings has been wicked enough to behave in this way to you, as though you had been doing something naughty?' "'your wife, juno,' answered diana, 'has been ill-treating me; all our quarrels always begin with her.'" * * * * * the above extracts must suffice as examples of the kind of divine comedy in which homer brings the gods and goddesses upon the scene. among mortals the humour, what there is of it, is confined mainly to the grim taunts which the heroes fling at one another when they are fighting, and more especially to crowing over a fallen foe. the most subtle passage is the one in which briseis, the captive woman about whom achilles and agamemnon have quarrelled, is restored by agamemnon to achilles. briseis on her return to the tent of achilles finds that while she has been with agamemnon, patroclus has been killed by hector, and his dead body is now lying in state. she flings herself upon the corpse and exclaims-"how one misfortune does keep falling upon me after another! i saw the man to whom my father and mother had married me killed before my eyes, and my three own dear brothers perished along with him; but you, patroclus, even when achilles was sacking our city and killing my husband, told me that i was not to cry; for you said that achilles himself should marry me, and take me back with him to phthia, where we should have a wedding feast among the myrmidons. you were always kind to me, and i should never cease to grieve for you." this may of course be seriously intended, but homer was an acute writer, and if we had met with such a passage in thackeray we should have taken him to mean that so long as a woman can get a new husband, she does not much care about losing the old one--a sentiment which i hope no one will imagine that i for one moment endorse or approve of, and which i can only explain as a piece of sarcasm aimed possibly at mrs. homer. * * * * * and now let us turn to the odyssey, a work which i myself think of as the iliad's better half or wife. here we have a poem of more varied interest, instinct with not less genius, and on the whole i should say, if less robust, nevertheless of still greater fascination--one, moreover, the irony of which is pointed neither at gods nor woman, but with one single and perhaps intercalated exception, at man. gods and women may sometimes do wrong things, but, except as regards the intrigue between mars and venus just referred to, they are never laughed at. the scepticism of the iliad is that of hume or gibbon; that of the odyssey (if any) is like the occasional mild irreverence of the vicar's daughter. when jove says he will do a thing, there is no uncertainty about his doing it. juno hardly appears at all, and when she does she never quarrels with her husband. minerva has more to do than any of the other gods or goddesses, but she has nothing in common with the minerva whom we have already seen in the iliad. in the odyssey she is the fairy god-mother who seems to have no object in life but to protect ulysses and telemachus, and keep them straight at any touch and turn of difficulty. if she has any other function, it is to be patroness of the arts and of all intellectual development. the minerva of the odyssey may indeed sit on a rafter like a swallow and hold up her aegis to strike panic into the suitors while ulysses kills them; but she is a perfect lady, and would no more knock mars and venus down one after the other than she would stand on her head. she is, in fact, a distinct person in all respects from the minerva of the iliad. of the remaining gods neptune, as the persecutor of the hero, comes worst off; but even he is treated as though he were a very important person. in the odyssey the gods no longer live in houses and sleep in fourpost bedsteads, but the conception of their abode, like that of their existence altogether, is far more spiritual. nobody knows exactly where they live, but they say it is in olympus, where there is neither rain nor hail nor snow, and the wind never beats roughly; but it abides in everlasting sunshine, and in great peacefulness of light wherein the blessed gods are illumined for ever and ever. it is hardly possible to conceive anything more different from the olympus of the iliad. another very material point of difference between the iliad and the odyssey lies in the fact that the homer of the iliad always knows what he is talking about, while the supposed homer of the odyssey often makes mistakes that betray an almost incredible ignorance of detail. thus the giant polyphemus drives in his ewes home from their pasture, and milks them. the lambs of course have not been running with them; they have been left in the yards, so they have had nothing to eat. when he has milked the ewes, the giant lets each one of them have her lamb--to get, i suppose, what strippings it can, and beyond this what milk the ewe may yield during the night. in the morning, however, polyphemus milks the ewes again. hence it is plain either that he expected his lambs to thrive on one pull per diem at a milked ewe, and to be kind enough not to suck their mothers, though left with them all night through, or else that the writer of the odyssey had very hazy notions about the relations between lambs and ewes, and of the ordinary methods of procedure on an upland dairy-farm. in nautical matters the same inexperience is betrayed. the writer knows all about the corn and wine that must be put on board; the store-room in which these are kept and the getting of them are described inimitably, but there the knowledge ends; the other things put on board are "the things that are generally taken on board ships." so on a voyage we are told that the sailors do whatever is wanted doing, but we have no details. there is a shipwreck, which does duty more than once without the alteration of a word. i have seen such a shipwreck at drury lane. anyone, moreover, who reads any authentic account of actual adventures will perceive at once that those of the odyssey are the creation of one who has had no history. ulysses has to make a raft; he makes it about as broad as they generally make a good big ship, but we do not seem to have been at the pains to measure a good big ship. i will add no more however on this head. the leading characteristics of the iliad, as we saw, were love, war, and plunder. the leading idea of the odyssey is the infatuation of man, and the key-note is struck in the opening paragraph, where we are told how the sailors of ulysses must needs, in spite of every warning, kill and eat the cattle of the sun-god, and perished accordingly. a few lines lower down the same note is struck with even greater emphasis. the gods have met in council, and jove happens at the moment to be thinking of aegisthus, who had met his death at the hand of agamemnon's son orestes, in spite of the solemn warning that jove had sent him through the mouth of mercury. it does not seem necessary for jove to turn his attention to clytemnestra, the partner of aegisthus's guilt. of this lady we are presently told that she was naturally of an excellent disposition, and would never have gone wrong but for the loss of the protector in whose charge agamemnon had left her. when she was left alone without an adviser-well, if a base designing man took to flattering and misleading her--what else could be expected? the infatuation of man, with its corollary, the superior excellence of woman, is the leading theme; next to this come art, religion, and, i am almost ashamed to add, money. there is no love-business in the odyssey except the return of a bald elderly married man to his elderly wife and grown-up son after an absence of twenty years, and furious at having been robbed of so much money in the meantime. but this can hardly be called love-business; it is at the utmost domesticity. there is a charming young princess, nausicaa, but though she affects a passing tenderness for the elderly hero of her creation as soon as minerva has curled his bald old hair for him and tittivated him up all over, she makes it abundantly plain that she will not look at a single one of her actual flesh and blood admirers. there is a leading young gentleman, telemachus, who is nothing if he is not [greek], or canny, well-principled, and discreet; he has an amiable and most sensible young male friend who says that he does not like crying at meal times--he will cry in the forenoon on an empty stomach as much as anyone pleases, but he cannot attend properly to his dinner and cry at the same time. well, there is no lady provided either for this nice young man or for telemachus. they are left high and dry as bachelors. two goddesses indeed, circe and calypso, do one after the other take possession of ulysses, but the way in which he accepts a situation which after all was none of his seeking, and which it is plain he does not care two straws about, is, i believe, dictated solely by a desire to exhibit the easy infidelity of ulysses himself in contrast with the unswerving constancy and fidelity of his wife penelope. throughout the odyssey the men do not really care for women, nor the women for men; they have to pretend to do so now and again, but it is a got-up thing, and the general attitude of the sexes towards one another is very much that of helen, who says that her husband menelaus is really not deficient in person or understanding: or again of penelope herself, who, on being asked by ulysses on his return what she thought of him, said that she did not think very much of him nor very little of him; in fact, she did not think much about him one way or the other. true, later on she relents and becomes more effusive; in fact, when she and ulysses sat up talking in bed and ulysses told her the story of his adventures, she never went to sleep once. ulysses never had to nudge her with his elbow and say, "come, wake up, penelope, you are not listening"; but, in spite of the devotion exhibited here, the love-business in the odyssey is artificial and described by one who had never felt it, whereas in the iliad it is spontaneous and obviously genuine, as by one who knows all about it perfectly well. the love-business in fact of the odyssey is turned on as we turn on the gas--when we cannot get on without it, but not otherwise. a fascinating brilliant girl, who naturally adopts for her patroness the blue-stocking minerva; a man-hatress, as clever girls so often are, and determined to pay the author of the iliad out for his treatment of her sex by insisting on its superior moral, not to say intellectual, capacity, and on the self-sufficient imbecility of man unless he has a woman always at his elbow to keep him tolerably straight and in his proper place--this, and not the musty fusty old bust we see in libraries, is the kind of person who i believe wrote the odyssey. of course in reality the work must be written by a man, because they say so at oxford and cambridge, and they know everything down in oxford and cambridge; but i venture to say that if the odyssey were to appear anonymously for the first time now, and to be sent round to the papers for review, there is not even a professional critic who would not see that it is a woman's writing and not a man's. but letting this pass, i can hardly doubt, for reasons which i gave in yesterday's athenaeum, and for others that i cannot now insist upon, that the poem was written by a native of trapani on the coast of sicily, near marsala. fancy what the position of a young, ardent, brilliant woman must have been in a small sicilian sea-port, say some eight or nine hundred years before the birth of christ. it makes one shudder to think of it. night after night she hears the dreary blind old bard demodocus drawl out his interminable recitals taken from our present iliad, or from some other of the many poems now lost that dealt with the adventures of the greeks before troy or on their homeward journey. man and his doings! always the same old story, and woman always to be treated either as a toy or as a beast of burden, or at any rate as an incubus. why not sing of woman also as she is when she is unattached and free from the trammels and persecutions of this tiresome tyrant, this insufferably self-conceited bore and booby, man? "i wish, my dear," exclaims her mother arete, after one of these little outbreaks, "that you would do it yourself. i am sure you could do it beautifully if you would only give your mind to it." "very well, mother," she replies, "and i will bring in all about you and father, and how i go out for a washing-day with the maids,"--and she kept her word, as i will presently show you. i should tell you that ulysses, having got away from the goddess calypso, with whom he had been living for some seven or eight years on a lonely and very distant island in mid-ocean, is shipwrecked on the coast of phaeacia, the chief town of which is scheria. after swimming some forty-eight hours in the water he effects a landing at the mouth of a stream, and, not having a rag of clothes on his back, covers himself up under a heap of dried leaves and goes to sleep. i will now translate from the odyssey itself. "so here ulysses slept, worn out with labour and sorrow; but minerva went off to the chief town of the phaeacians, a people who used to live in hypereia near the wicked cyclopes. now the cyclopes were stronger than they and plundered them, so nausithous settled them in scheria far from those who would loot them. he ran a wall round about the city, built houses and temples, and allotted the lands among his people; but he was gathered to his fathers, and the good king alcinous was now reigning. to his palace then minerva hastened that she might help ulysses to get home. "she went straight to the painted bedroom of nausicaa, who was daughter to king alcinous, and lovely as a goddess. near her there slept two maids-in-waiting, both very pretty, one on either side of the doorway, which was closed with a beautifully made door. she took the form of the famous captain dumas's daughter, who was a bosom friend of nausicaa and just her own age; then coming into the room like a breath of wind she stood near the head of the bed and said-"'nausicaa, what could your mother have been about to have such a lazy daughter? here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are going to be married almost directly, and should not only be well-dressed yourself, but should see that those about you look clean and tidy also. this is the way to make people speak well of you, and it will please your father and mother, so suppose we make to-morrow a washing day, and begin the first thing in the morning. i will come and help you, for all the best young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not going to remain a maid much longer. ask your father, then, to have a horse and cart ready for us at daybreak to take the linen and baskets, and you can ride too, which will be much pleasanter for you than walking, for the washing ground is a long way out of the town.' "when she had thus spoken minerva went back to olympus. by and by morning came, and as soon as nausicaa woke she began thinking about her dream. she went to the other end of the house to tell her father and mother all about it, and found them in their own room. her mother was sitting by the fireside spinning with her maids-inwaiting all around her, and she happened to catch her father just as he was going out to attend a meeting of the town council which the phaeacian aldermen had convened. so she stopped him and said, 'papa, dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? i want to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. you are the chief man here, so you ought to have a clean shirt on when you attend meetings of the council. moreover, you have five sons at home, two of them married and the other three are good-looking young bachelors; you know they always like to have clean linen when they go out to a dance, and i have been thinking about all this.'" you will observe that though nausicaa dreams that she is going to be married shortly, and that all the best young men of scheria are in love with her, she does not dream that she has fallen in love with any one of them in particular, and that thus every preparation is made for her getting married except the selection of the bridegroom. you will also note that nausicaa has to keep her father up to putting a clean shirt on when he ought to have one, whereas her young brothers appear to keep herself up to having a clean shirt ready for them when they want one. these little touches are so lifelike and so feminine that they suggest drawing from life by a female member of alcinous's own family who knew his character from behind the scenes. i would also say before proceeding further that in some parts of france and germany it is still the custom to have but one or at most two great washing days in the year. each household is provided with an enormous quantity of linen, which when dirty is just soaked and rinsed, and then put aside till the great washing day of the year. this is why nausicaa wants a waggon, and has to go so far afield. if it was only a few collars and a pocket-handkerchief or two she could no doubt have found water enough near at hand. the big spring or autumn wash, however, is evidently intended. returning now to the odyssey, when he had heard what nausicaa wanted alcinous said: "'you shall have the mules, my love, and whatever else you have a mind for, so be off with you.' "then he told the servants, and they got the waggon out and harnessed the mules, while the princess brought the clothes down from the linen room and placed them on the waggon. her mother got ready a nice basket of provisions with all sorts of good things, and a goatskin full of wine. the princess now got into the waggon, and her mother gave her a golden cruse of oil that she and her maids might anoint themselves. "then nausicaa took the whip and reins and gave the mules a touch which sent them off at a good pace. they pulled without nagging, and carried not only nausicaa and her wash of clothes, but the women also who were with her. "when they got to the river they went to the washing pools, through which even in summer there ran enough pure water to wash any quantity of linen, no matter how dirty. here they unharnessed the mules and turned them out to feed in the sweet juicy grass that grew by the river-side. they got the clothes out of the waggon, brought them to the water, and vied with one another in treading upon them and banging them about to get the dirt out of them. when they had got them quite clean, they laid them out by the seaside where the waves had raised a high beach of shingle, and set about washing and anointing themselves with olive oil. then they got their dinner by the side of the river, and waited for the sun to finish drying the clothes. by and by, after dinner, they took off their head-dresses and began to play at ball, and nausicaa sang to them." i think you will agree with me that there is no haziness--no milking of ewes that have had a lamb with them all night--here. the writer is at home and on her own ground. "when they had done folding the clothes and were putting the mules to the waggon before starting home again, minerva thought it was time ulysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to take him to the city of the phaeacians. so the princess threw a ball at one of the maids, which missed the maid and fell into the water. on this they all shouted, and the noise they made woke up ulysses, who sat up in his bed of leaves and wondered where in the world he could have got to. "then he crept from under the bush beneath which he had slept, broke off a thick bough so as to cover his nakedness, and advanced towards nausicaa and her maids; these last all ran away, but nausicaa stood her ground, for minerva had put courage into her heart, so she kept quite still, and ulysses could not make up his mind whether it would be better to go up to her, throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a suppliant--[in which case, of course, he would have to drop the bough] or whether it would be better for him to make an apology to her at a reasonable distance, and ask her to be good enough to give him some clothes and show him the way to the town. on the whole he thought it would be better to keep at arm's length, in case the princess should take offence at his coming too near her." let me say in passing that this is one of many passages which have led me to conclude that the odyssey is written by a woman. a girl, such as nausicaa describes herself, young, unmarried, unattached, and hence, after all, knowing little of what men feel on these matters, having by a cruel freak of inspiration got her hero into such an awkward predicament, might conceivably imagine that he would argue as she represents him, but no man, except such a woman's tailor as could never have written such a masterpiece as the odyssey, would ever get his hero into such an undignified scrape at all, much less represent him as arguing as ulysses does. i suppose minerva was so busy making nausicaa brave that she had no time to put a little sense into ulysses' head, and remind him that he was nothing if not full of sagacity and resource. to return-ulysses now begins with the most judicious apology that his unaided imagination can suggest. "i beg your ladyship's pardon," he exclaims, "but are you goddess or are you a mortal woman? if you are a goddess and live in heaven, there can be no doubt but you are jove's daughter diana, for your face and figure are exactly like hers," and so on in a long speech which i need not further quote from. "stranger," replied nausicaa, as soon as the speech was ended, "you seem to be a very sensible well-disposed person. there is no accounting for luck; jove gives good or ill to every man, just as he chooses, so you must take your lot, and make the best of it." she then tells him she will give him clothes and everything else that a foreigner in distress can reasonably expect. she calls back her maids, scolds them for running away, and tells them to take ulysses and wash him in the river after giving him something to eat and drink. so the maids give him the little gold cruse of oil and tell him to go and wash himself, and as they seem to have completely recovered from their alarm, ulysses is compelled to say, "young ladies, please stand a little on one side, that i may wash the brine from off my shoulders and anoint myself with oil; for it is long enough since my skin has had a drop of oil upon it. i cannot wash as long as you keep standing there. i have no clothes on, and it makes me very uncomfortable." so they stood aside and went and told nausicaa. meanwhile (i am translating closely), "minerva made him look taller and stronger than before; she gave him some more hair on the top of his head, and made it flow down in curls most beautifully; in fact she glorified him about the head and shoulders as a cunning workman who has studied under vulcan or minerva enriches a fine piece of plate by gilding it." again i argue that i am reading a description of as it were a prehistoric mr. knightley by a not less prehistoric jane austen-with this difference that i believe nausicaa is quietly laughing at her hero and sees through him, whereas jane austen takes mr. knightley seriously. "hush, my pretty maids," exclaimed nausicaa as soon as she saw ulysses coming back with his hair curled, "hush, for i want to say something. i believe the gods in heaven have sent this man here. there is something very remarkable about him. when i first saw him i thought him quite plain and commonplace, and now i consider him one of the handsomest men i ever saw in my life. i should like my future husband [who, it is plain, then, is not yet decided upon] to be just such another as he is, if he would only stay here, and not want to go away. however, give him something to eat and drink." nausicaa now says they must be starting homeward; so she tells ulysses that she will drive on first herself, but that he is to follow after her with the maids. she does not want to be seen coming into the town with him; and then follows another passage which clearly shows that for all the talk she has made about getting married she has no present intention of changing her name. "'i am afraid,' she says, 'of the gossip and scandal which may be set on foot about me behind my back, for there are some very illnatured people in the town, and some low fellow, if he met us, might say, 'who is this fine-looking stranger who is going about with nausicaa? where did she pick him up? i suppose she is going to marry him, or perhaps he is some shipwrecked sailor from foreign parts; or has some god come down from heaven in answer to her prayers, and she is going to live with him? it would be a good thing if she would take herself off and find a husband somewhere else, for she will not look at one of the many excellent young phaeacians who are in love with her'; and i could not complain, for i should myself think ill of any girl whom i saw going about with men unknown to her father and mother, and without having been married to him in the face of all the world.'" this passage could never have been written by the local bard, who was in great measure dependent on nausicaa's family; he would never speak thus of his patron's daughter; either the passage is nausicaa's apology for herself, written by herself, or it is pure invention, and this last, considering the close adherence to the actual topography of trapani on the sicilian coast, and a great deal else that i cannot lay before you here, appears to me improbable. nausicaa then gives ulysses directions by which he can find her father's house. "when you have got past the courtyard," she says, "go straight through the main hall, till you come to my mother's room. you will find her sitting by the fire and spinning her purple wool by firelight. she will make a lovely picture as she leans back against a column with her maids ranged behind her. facing her stands my father's seat in which he sits and topes like an immortal god. never mind him, but go up to my mother and lay your hands upon her knees, if you would be forwarded on your homeward voyage." from which i conclude that arete ruled alcinous, and nausicaa ruled arete. ulysses follows his instructions aided by minerva, who makes him invisible as he passes through the town and through the crowds of phaeacian guests who are feasting in the king's palace. when he has reached the queen, the cloak of thick darkness falls off, and he is revealed to all present, kneeling at the feet of queen arete, to whom he makes his appeal. it has already been made apparent in a passage extolling her virtue at some length, but which i have not been able to quote, that queen arete is, in the eyes of the writer, a much more important person than her husband alcinous. every one, of course, is very much surprised at seeing ulysses, but after a little discussion, from which it appears that the writer considers alcinous to be a person who requires a good deal of keeping straight in other matters besides clean linen, it is settled that ulysses shall be feted on the following day and then escorted home. ulysses now has supper and remains with alcinous and arete after the other guests are gone away for the night. so the three sit by the fire while the servants take away the things, and arete is the first to speak. she has been uneasy for some time about ulysses' clothes, which she recognized as her own make, and at last she says, "stranger, there is a question or two that i should like to put to you myself. who in the world are you? and who gave you those clothes? did you not say you had come here from beyond the seas?" ulysses explains matters, but still withholds his name, nevertheless alcinous (who seems to have shared in the general opinion that it was high time his daughter got married, and that, provided she married somebody, it did not much matter who the bridegroom might be) exclaimed, "by father jove, minerva, and apollo, now that i see what kind of a person you are and how exactly our opinions coincide upon every subject, i should so like it if you would stay with us always, marry nausicaa, and become my son-in-law." ulysses turns the conversation immediately, and meanwhile queen arete told her maids to put a bed in the corridor, and make it with red blankets, and it was to have at least one counterpane. they were also to put a woollen nightgown for ulysses. "the maids took a torch, and made the bed as fast as they could: when they had done so they came up to ulysses and said, 'this way, sir, if you please, your room is quite ready'; and ulysses was very glad to hear them say so." on the following day alcinous holds a meeting of the phaeacians and proposes that ulysses should have a ship got ready to take him home at once: this being settled he invites all the leading people, and the fifty-two sailors who are to man ulysses' ship, to come up to his own house, and he will give them a banquet--for which he kills a dozen sheep, eight pigs, and two oxen. immediately after gorging themselves at the banquet they have a series of athletic competitions, and from this i gather the poem to have been written by one who saw nothing very odd in letting people compete in sports requiring very violent exercise immediately after a heavy meal. such a course may have been usual in those days, but certainly is not generally adopted in our own. at the games alcinous makes himself as ridiculous as he always does, and ulysses behaves much as the hero of the preceding afternoon might be expected to do--but on his praising the phaeacians towards the close of the proceedings alcinous says he is a person of such singular judgment that they really must all of them make him a very handsome present. "twelve of you," he exclaims, "are magistrates, and there is myself--that makes thirteen; suppose we give him each one of us a clean cloak, a tunic, and a talent of gold,"--which in those days was worth about two hundred and fifty pounds. this is unanimously agreed to, and in the evening, towards sundown, the presents began to make their appearance at the palace of king alcinous, and the king's sons, perhaps prudently as you will presently see, place them in the keeping of their mother arete. when the presents have all arrived, alcinous says to arete, "wife, go and fetch the best chest we have, and put a clean cloak and a tunic in it. in the meantime ulysses will take a bath." arete orders the maids to heat a bath, brings the chest, packs up the raiment and gold which the phaeacians have brought, and adds a cloak and a good tunic as king alcinous's own contribution. yes, but where--and that is what we are never told--is the 250 pounds which he ought to have contributed as well as the cloak and tunic? and where is the beautiful gold goblet which he had also promised? "see to the fastening yourself," says queen arete to ulysses, "for fear anyone should rob you while you are asleep in the ship." ulysses, we may be sure, was well aware that alcinous's 250 pounds was not in the box, nor yet the goblet, but he took the hint at once and made the chest fast without the delay of a moment, with a bond which the cunning goddess circe had taught him. he does not seem to have thought his chance of getting the 250 pounds and the goblet, and having to unpack his box again, was so great as his chance of having his box tampered with before he got it away, if he neglected to double-lock it at once and put the key in his pocket. he has always a keen eye to money; indeed the whole odyssey turns on what is substantially a money quarrel, so this time without the prompting of minerva he does one of the very few sensible things which he does, on his own account, throughout the whole poem. supper is now served, and when it is over, ulysses, pressed by alcinous, announces his name and begins the story of his adventures. it is with profound regret that i find myself unable to quote any of the fascinating episodes with which his narrative abounds, but i have said i was going to lecture on the humour of homer--that is to say of the iliad and the odyssey--and must not be diverted from my subject. i cannot, however, resist the account which ulysses gives of his meeting with his mother in hades, the place of departed spirits, which he has visited by the advice of circe. his mother comes up to him and asks him how he managed to get into hades, being still alive. i will translate freely, but quite closely, from ulysses' own words, as spoken to the phaeacians. "and i said, 'mother, i had to come here to consult the ghost of the old theban prophet teiresias, i have never yet been near greece, nor set foot on my native land, and have had nothing but one long run of ill luck from the day i set out with agamemnon to fight at troy. but tell me how you came here yourself? did you have a long and painful illness or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy passage to eternity? tell me also about my father and my son? is my property still in their hands, or has someone else got hold of it who thinks that i shall not return to claim it? how, again, is my wife conducting herself? does she live with her son and make a home for him, or has she married again?' "my mother answered, 'your wife is still mistress of your house, but she is in very great straits and spends the greater part of her time in tears. no one has actually taken possession of your property, and telemachus still holds it. he has to accept a great many invitations, and gives much the sort of entertainments in return that may be expected from one in his position. your father remains in the old place, and never goes near the town; he is very badly off, and has neither bed nor bedding, nor a stick of furniture of any kind. in winter he sleeps on the floor in front of the fire with the men, and his clothes are in a shocking state, but in summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he sleeps out in the vineyard on a bed of vine leaves. he takes on very much about your not having returned, and suffers more and more as he grows older: as for me i died of nothing whatever in the world but grief about yourself. there was not a thing the matter with me, but my prolonged anxiety on your account was too much for me, and in the end it just wore me out.'" in the course of time ulysses comes to a pause in his narrative and queen arete makes a little speech. "'what do you think,' she said to the phaeacians, 'of such a guest as this? did you ever see anyone at once so good-looking and so clever? it is true, indeed, that his visit is paid more particularly to myself, but you all participate in the honour conferred upon us by a visitor of such distinction. do not be in a hurry to send him off, nor stingy in the presents you make to one in so great need; for you are all of you very well off.'" you will note that the queen does not say "_we_ are all of _us_ very well off." "then the hero echeneus, who was the oldest man among them, added a few words of his own. 'my friends,' he said, 'there cannot be two opinions about the graciousness and sagacity of the remarks that have just fallen from her majesty; nevertheless it is with his majesty king alcinous that the decision must ultimately rest.' "'the thing shall be done,' exclaimed alcinous, 'if i am still king over the phaeacians. as for our guest, i know he is anxious to resume his journey, still we must persuade him if we can to stay with us until to-morrow, by which time i shall be able to get together the balance of the sum which i mean to press on his acceptance.'" so here we have it straight out that the monarch knew he had only contributed the coat and waistcoat, and did not know exactly how he was to lay his hands on the 250 pounds. what with piracy--for we have been told of at least one case in which alcinous had looted a town and stolen his housemaid eurymedusa--what with insufficient changes of linen, toping like an immortal god, swaggering at large, and open-handed hospitality, it is plain and by no means surprising that alcinous is out at elbows; nor can there be a better example of the difference between the occasional broad comedy of the iliad and the delicate but very bitter satire of the odyssey than the way in which the fact that alcinous is in money difficulties is allowed to steal upon us, as contrasted with the obvious humour of the quarrels between jove and juno. at any rate we can hardly wonder at ulysses having felt that to a monarch of such mixed character the unfastened box might prove a temptation greater than he could resist. to return, however, to the story-"if it please your majesty," said he, in answer to king alcinous, "i should be delighted to stay here for another twelve months, and to accept from your hands the vast treasures and the escort which you are go generous as to promise me. i should obviously gain by doing so, for i should return fuller-handed to my own people and should thus be both more respected and more loved by my acquaintance. still to receive such presents--" the king perceived his embarrassment, and at once relieved him. "no one," he exclaimed, "who looks at you can for one moment take you for a charlatan or a swindler. i know there are many of these unscrupulous persons going about just now with such plausible stories that it is very hard to disbelieve them; there is, however, a finish about your style which convinces me of your good disposition," and so on for more than i have space to quote; after which ulysses again proceeds with his adventures. when he had finished them alcinous insists that the leading phaeacians should each one of them give ulysses a still further present of a large kitchen copper and a three-legged stand to set it on, "but," he continues, "as the expense of all these presents is really too heavy for the purse of any private individual, i shall charge the whole of them on the rates": literally, "we will repay ourselves by getting it in from among the people, for this is too heavy a present for the purse of a private individual." and what this can mean except charging it on the rates i do not know. of course everyone else sends up his tripod and his cauldron, but we hear nothing about any, either tripod or cauldron, from king alcinous. he is very fussy next morning stowing them under the ship's benches, but his time and trouble seem to be the extent of his contribution. it is hardly necessary to say that ulysses had to go away without the 250 pounds, and that we never hear of the promised goblet being presented. still he had done pretty well. i have not quoted anything like all the absurd remarks made by alcinous, nor shown you nearly as completely as i could do if i had more time how obviously the writer is quietly laughing at him in her sleeve. she understands his little ways as she understands those of menelaus, who tells telemachus and pisistratus that if they like he will take them a personally conducted tour round the peloponnese, and that they can make a good thing out of it, for everyone will give them something--fancy helen or queen arete making such a proposal as this. they are never laughed at, but then they are women, whereas alcinous and menelaus are men, and this makes all the difference. and now in conclusion let me point out the irony of literature in connection with this astonishing work. here is a poem in which the hero and heroine have already been married many years before it begins: it is marked by a total absence of love-business in such sense as we understand it: its interest centres mainly in the fact of a bald elderly gentleman, whose little remaining hair is red, being eaten out of house and home during his absence by a number of young men who are courting the supposed widow--a widow who, if she be fair and fat, can hardly also be less than forty. can any subject seem more hopeless? moreover, this subject so initially faulty is treated with a carelessness in respect of consistency, ignorance of commonly known details, and disregard of ordinary canons, that can hardly be surpassed, and yet i cannot think that in the whole range of literature there is a work which can be decisively placed above it. i am afraid you will hardly accept this; i do not see how you can be expected to do so, for in the first place there is no even tolerable prose translation, and in the second, the odyssey, like the iliad, has been a school book for over two thousand five hundred years, and what more cruel revenge than this can dullness take on genius? the iliad and odyssey have been used as text-books for education during at least two thousand five hundred years, and yet it is only during the last forty or fifty that people have begun to see that they are by different authors. there was, indeed, so i learn from colonel mure's valuable work, a band of scholars some few hundreds of years before the birth of christ, who refused to see the iliad and odyssey as by the same author, but they were snubbed and snuffed out, and for more than two thousand years were considered to have been finally refuted. can there be any more scathing satire upon the value of literary criticism? it would seem as though minerva had shed the same thick darkness over both the poems as she shed over ulysses, so that they might go in and out among the dons of oxford and cambridge from generation to generation, and none should see them. if i am right, as i believe i am, in holding the odyssey to have been written by a young woman, was ever sleeping beauty more effectually concealed behind a more impenetrable hedge of dulness?--and she will have to sleep a good many years yet before anyone wakes her effectually. but what else can one expect from people, not one of whom has been at the very slight exertion of noting a few of the writer's main topographical indications, and then looking for them in an admiralty chart or two? can any step be more obvious and easy--indeed, it is so simple that i am ashamed of myself for not having taken it forty years ago. students of the odyssey for the most part are so engrossed with the force of the zeugma, and of the enclitic particle [greek]; they take so much more interest in the digamma and in the aeolic dialect, than they do in the living spirit that sits behind all these things and alone gives them their importance, that, naturally enough, not caring about the personality, it remains and always must remain invisible to them. if i have helped to make it any less invisible to yourselves, let me ask you to pardon the somewhat querulous tone of my concluding remarks. quis desiderio . . .? {99} like mr. wilkie collins, i, too, have been asked to lay some of my literary experiences before the readers of the universal review. it occurred to me that the review must be indeed universal before it could open its pages to one so obscure as myself; but, nothing daunted by the distinguished company among which i was for the first time asked to move, i resolved to do as i was told, and went to the british museum to see what books i had written. having refreshed my memory by a glance at the catalogue, i was about to try and diminish the large and ever-increasing circle of my non-readers when i became aware of a calamity that brought me to a standstill, and indeed bids fair, so far as i can see at present, to put an end to my literary existence altogether. i should explain that i cannot write unless i have a sloping desk, and the reading-room of the british museum, where alone i can compose freely, is unprovided with sloping desks. like every other organism, if i cannot get exactly what i want i make shift with the next thing to it; true, there are no desks in the reading-room, but, as i once heard a visitor from the country say, "it contains a large number of very interesting works." i know it was not right, and hope the museum authorities will not be severe upon me if any of them reads this confession; but i wanted a desk, and set myself to consider which of the many very interesting works which a grateful nation places at the disposal of its would-be authors was best suited for my purpose. for mere reading i suppose one book is pretty much as good as another; but the choice of a desk-book is a more serious matter. it must be neither too thick nor too thin; it must be large enough to make a substantial support; it must be strongly bound so as not to yield or give; it must not be too troublesome to carry backwards and forwards; and it must live on shelf c, d, or e, so that there need be no stooping or reaching too high. these are the conditions which a really good book must fulfil; simple, however, as they are, it is surprising how few volumes comply with them satisfactorily; moreover, being perhaps too sensitively conscientious, i allowed another consideration to influence me, and was sincerely anxious not to take a book which would be in constant use for reference by readers, more especially as, if i did this, i might find myself disturbed by the officials. for weeks i made experiments upon sundry poetical and philosophical works, whose names i have forgotten, but could not succeed in finding my ideal desk, until at length, more by luck than cunning, i happened to light upon frost's lives of eminent christians, which i had no sooner tried than i discovered it to be the very perfection and ne plus ultra of everything that a book should be. it lived in case no. 2008, and i accordingly took at once to sitting in row b, where for the last dozen years or so i have sat ever since. the first thing i have done whenever i went to the museum has been to take down frost's lives of eminent christians and carry it to my seat. it is not the custom of modern writers to refer to the works to which they are most deeply indebted, and i have never, that i remember, mentioned it by name before; but it is to this book alone that i have looked for support during many years of literary labour, and it is round this to me invaluable volume that all my own have page by page grown up. there is none in the museum to which i have been under anything like such constant obligation, none which i can so ill spare, and none which i would choose so readily if i were allowed to select one single volume and keep it for my own. on finding myself asked for a contribution to the universal review, i went, as i have explained, to the museum, and presently repaired to bookcase no. 2008 to get my favourite volume. alas! it was in the room no longer. it was not in use, for its place was filled up already; besides, no one ever used it but myself. whether the ghost of the late mr. frost has been so eminently unchristian as to interfere, or whether the authorities have removed the book in ignorance of the steady demand which there has been for it on the part of at least one reader, are points i cannot determine. all i know is that the book is gone, and i feel as wordsworth is generally supposed to have felt when he became aware that lucy was in her grave, and exclaimed so emphatically that this would make a considerable difference to him, or words to that effect. now i think of it, frost's lives of eminent christians was very like lucy. the one resided at dovedale in derbyshire, the other in great russell street, bloomsbury. i admit that i do not see the resemblance here at this moment, but if i try to develop my perception i shall doubtless ere long find a marvellously striking one. in other respects, however, than mere local habitat the likeness is obvious. lucy was not particularly attractive either inside or out--no more was frost's lives of eminent christians; there were few to praise her, and of those few still fewer could bring themselves to like her; indeed, wordsworth himself seems to have been the only person who thought much about her one way or the other. in like manner, i believe i was the only reader who thought much one way or the other about frost's lives of eminent christians, but this in itself was one of the attractions of the book; and as for the grief we respectively felt and feel, i believe my own to be as deep as wordsworth's, if not more so. i said above, "as wordsworth is generally supposed to have felt"; for anyone imbued with the spirit of modern science will read wordsworth's poem with different eyes from those of a mere literary critic. he will note that wordsworth is most careful not to explain the nature of the difference which the death of lucy will occasion to him. he tells us that there will be a difference; but there the matter ends. the superficial reader takes it that he was very sorry she was dead; it is, of course, possible that he may have actually been so, but he has not said this. on the contrary, he has hinted plainly that she was ugly, and generally disliked; she was only like a violet when she was half-hidden from the view, and only fair as a star when there were so few stars out that it was practically impossible to make an invidious comparison. if there were as many as even two stars the likeness was felt to be at an end. if wordsworth had imprudently promised to marry this young person during a time when he had been unusually long in keeping to good resolutions, and had afterwards seen someone whom he liked better, then lucy's death would undoubtedly have made a considerable difference to him, and this is all that he has ever said that it would do. what right have we to put glosses upon the masterly reticence of a poet, and credit him with feelings possibly the very reverse of those he actually entertained? sometimes, indeed, i have been inclined to think that a mystery is being hinted at more dark than any critic has suspected. i do not happen to possess a copy of the poem, but the writer, if i am not mistaken, says that "few could know when lucy ceased to be." "ceased to be" is a suspiciously euphemistic expression, and the words "few could know" are not applicable to the ordinary peaceful death of a domestic servant such as lucy appears to have been. no matter how obscure the deceased, any number of people commonly can know the day and hour of his or her demise, whereas in this case we are expressly told it would be impossible for them to do so. wordsworth was nothing if not accurate, and would not have said that few could know, but that few actually did know, unless he was aware of circumstances that precluded all but those implicated in the crime of her death from knowing the precise moment of its occurrence. if lucy was the kind of person not obscurely portrayed in the poem; if wordsworth had murdered her, either by cutting her throat or smothering her, in concert, perhaps, with his friends southey and coleridge; and if he had thus found himself released from an engagement which had become irksome to him, or possibly from the threat of an action for breach of promise, then there is not a syllable in the poem with which he crowns his crime that is not alive with meaning. on any other supposition to the general reader it is unintelligible. we cannot be too guarded in the interpretations we put upon the words of great poets. take the young lady who never loved the dear gazelle--and i don't believe she did; we are apt to think that moore intended us to see in this creation of his fancy a sweet, amiable, but most unfortunate young woman, whereas all he has told us about her points to an exactly opposite conclusion. in reality, he wished us to see a young lady who had been a habitual complainer from her earliest childhood; whose plants had always died as soon as she bought them, while those belonging to her neighbours had flourished. the inference is obvious, nor can we reasonably doubt that moore intended us to draw it; if her plants were the very first to fade away, she was evidently the very first to neglect or otherwise maltreat them. she did not give them enough water, or left the door of her fern-case open when she was cooking her dinner at the gas stove, or kept them too near the paraffin oil, or other like folly; and as for her temper, see what the gazelles did; as long as they did not know her "well," they could just manage to exist, but when they got to understand her real character, one after another felt that death was the only course open to it, and accordingly died rather than live with such a mistress. true, the young lady herself said the gazelles loved her; but disagreeable people are apt to think themselves amiable, and in view of the course invariably taken by the gazelles themselves anyone accustomed to weigh evidence will hold that she was probably mistaken. i must, however, return to frost's lives of eminent christians. i will leave none of the ambiguity about my words in which moore and wordsworth seem to have delighted. i am very sorry the book is gone, and know not where to turn for its successor. till i have found a substitute i can write no more, and i do not know how to find even a tolerable one. i should try a volume of migne's complete course of patrology, but i do not like books in more than one volume, for the volumes vary in thickness, and one never can remember which one took; the four volumes, however, of bede in giles's anglican fathers are not open to this objection, and i have reserved them for favourable consideration. mather's magnalia might do, but the binding does not please me; cureton's corpus ignatianum might also do if it were not too thin. i do not like taking norton's genuineness of the gospels, as it is just possible someone may be wanting to know whether the gospels are genuine or not, and be unable to find out because i have got mr. norton's book. baxter's church history of england, lingard's anglo-saxon church, and cardwell's documentary annals, though none of them as good as frost, are works of considerable merit; but on the whole i think arvine's cyclopedia of moral and religious anecdote is perhaps the one book in the room which comes within measurable distance of frost. i should probably try this book first, but it has a fatal objection in its too seductive title. "i am not curious," as miss lottie venne says in one of her parts, "but i like to know," and i might be tempted to pervert the book from its natural uses and open it, so as to find out what kind of a thing a moral and religious anecdote is. i know, of course, that there are a great many anecdotes in the bible, but no one thinks of calling them either moral or religious, though some of them certainly seem as if they might fairly find a place in mr. arvine's work. there are some things, however, which it is better not to know, and take it all round i do not think i should be wise in putting myself in the way of temptation, and adopting arvine as the successor to my beloved and lamented frost. some successor i must find, or i must give up writing altogether, and this i should be sorry to do. i have only as yet written about a third, or from that--counting works written but not published--to a half of the books which i have set myself to write. it would not so much matter if old age was not staring me in the face. dr. parr said it was "a beastly shame for an old man not to have laid down a good cellar of port in his youth"; i, like the greater number, i suppose, of those who write books at all, write in order that i may have something to read in my old age when i can write no longer. i know what i shall like better than anyone can tell me, and write accordingly; if my career is nipped in the bud, as seems only too likely, i really do not know where else i can turn for present agreeable occupation, nor yet how to make suitable provision for my later years. other writers can, of course, make excellent provision for their own old ages, but they cannot do so for mine, any more than i should succeed if i were to try to cater for theirs. it is one of those cases in which no man can make agreement for his brother. i have no heart for continuing this article, and if i had, i have nothing of interest to say. no one's literary career can have been smoother or more unchequered than mine. i have published all my books at my own expense, and paid for them in due course. what can be conceivably more unromantic? for some years i had a little literary grievance against the authorities of the british museum because they would insist on saying in their catalogue that i had published three sermons on infidelity in the year 1820. i thought i had not, and got them out to see. they were rather funny, but they were not mine. now, however, this grievance has been removed. i had another little quarrel with them because they would describe me as "of st. john's college, cambridge," an establishment for which i have the most profound veneration, but with which i have not had the honour to be connected for some quarter of a century. at last they said they would change this description if i would only tell them what i was, for, though they had done their best to find out, they had themselves failed. i replied with modest pride that i was a bachelor of arts. i keep all my other letters inside my name, not outside. they mused and said it was unfortunate that i was not a master of arts. could i not get myself made a master? i said i understood that a mastership was an article the university could not do under about five pounds, and that i was not disposed to go sixpence higher than three ten. they again said it was a pity, for it would be very inconvenient to them if i did not keep to something between a bishop and a poet. i might be anything i liked in reason, provided i showed proper respect for the alphabet; but they had got me between "samuel butler, bishop," and "samuel butler, poet." it would be very troublesome to shift me, and bachelor came before bishop. this was reasonable, so i replied that, under those circumstances, if they pleased, i thought i would like to be a philosophical writer. they embraced the solution, and, no matter what i write now, i must remain a philosophical writer as long as i live, for the alphabet will hardly be altered in my time, and i must be something between "bis" and "poe." if i could get a volume of my excellent namesake's hudibras out of the list of my works, i should be robbed of my last shred of literary grievance, so i say nothing about this, but keep it secret, lest some worse thing should happen to me. besides, i have a great respect for my namesake, and always say that if erewhon had been a racehorse it would have been got by hudibras out of analogy. someone said this to me many years ago, and i felt so much flattered that i have been repeating the remark as my own ever since. but how small are these grievances as compared with those endured without a murmur by hundreds of writers far more deserving than myself. when i see the scores and hundreds of workers in the reading-room who have done so much more than i have, but whose work is absolutely fruitless to themselves, and when i think of the prompt recognition obtained by my own work, i ask myself what i have done to be thus rewarded. on the other hand, the feeling that i have succeeded far beyond my deserts hitherto, makes it all the harder for me to acquiesce without complaint in the extinction of a career which i honestly believe to be a promising one; and once more i repeat that, unless the museum authorities give me back my frost, or put a locked clasp on arvine, my career must be extinguished. give me back frost, and, if life and health are spared, i will write another dozen of volumes yet before i hang up my fiddle--if so serious a confusion of metaphors may be pardoned. i know from long experience how kind and considerate both the late and present superintendents of the reading-room were and are, but i doubt how far either of them would be disposed to help me on this occasion; continue, however, to rob me of my frost, and, whatever else i may do, i will write no more books. note by dr. garnett, british museum.--the frost has broken up. mr. butler is restored to literature. mr. mudie may make himself easy. england will still boast a humorist; and the late mr. darwin (to whose posthumous machinations the removal of the book was owing) will continue to be confounded.--r. garnett. ramblings in cheapside {110} walking the other day in cheapside i saw some turtles in mr. sweeting's window, and was tempted to stay and look at them. as i did so i was struck not more by the defences with which they were hedged about, than by the fatuousness of trying to hedge that in at all which, if hedged thoroughly, must die of its own defencefulness. the holes for the head and feet through which the turtle leaks out, as it were, on to the exterior world, and through which it again absorbs the exterior world into itself--"catching on" through them to things that are thus both turtle and not turtle at one and the same time--these holes stultify the armour, and show it to have been designed by a creature with more of faithfulness to a fixed idea, and hence one-sidedness, than of that quick sense of relative importances and their changes, which is the main factor of good living. the turtle obviously had no sense of proportion; it differed so widely from myself that i could not comprehend it; and as this word occurred to me, it occurred also that until my body comprehended its body in a physical material sense, neither would my mind be able to comprehend its mind with any thoroughness. for unity of mind can only be consummated by unity of body; everything, therefore, must be in some respects both knave and fool to all that which has not eaten it, or by which it has not been eaten. as long as the turtle was in the window and i in the street outside, there was no chance of our comprehending one another. nevertheless, i knew that i could get it to agree with me if i could so effectually buttonhole and fasten on to it as to eat it. most men have an easy method with turtle soup, and i had no misgiving but that if i could bring my first premise to bear i should prove the better reasoner. my difficulty lay in this initial process, for i had not with me the argument that would alone compel mr. sweeting to think that i ought to be allowed to convert the turtles--i mean i had no money in my pocket. no missionary enterprise can be carried on without any money at all, but even so small a sum as half a crown would, i suppose, have enabled me to bring the turtle partly round, and with many half-crowns i could in time no doubt convert the lot, for the turtle needs must go where the money drives. if, as is alleged, the world stands on a turtle, the turtle stands on money. no money no turtle. as for money, that stands on opinion, credit, trust, faith--things that, though highly material in connection with money, are still of immaterial essence. the steps are perfectly plain. the men who caught the turtles brought a fairly strong and definite opinion to bear upon them, that passed into action, and later on into money. they thought the turtles would come that way, and verified their opinion; on this, will and action were generated, with the result that the men turned the turtles on their backs and carried them off. mr. sweeting touched these men with money, which is the outward and visible sign of verified opinion. the customer touches mr. sweeting with money, mr. sweeting touches the waiter and the cook with money. they touch the turtle with skill and verified opinion. finally, the customer applies the clinching argument that brushes all sophisms aside, and bids the turtle stand protoplasm to protoplasm with himself, to know even as it is known. but it must be all touch, touch, touch; skill, opinion, power, and money, passing in and out with one another in any order we like, but still link to link and touch to touch. if there is failure anywhere in respect of opinion, skill, power, or money, either as regards quantity or quality, the chain can be no stronger than its weakest link, and the turtle and the clinching argument will fly asunder. of course, if there is an initial failure in connection, through defect in any member of the chain, or of connection between the links, it will no more be attempted to bring the turtle and the clinching argument together, than it will to chain up a dog with two pieces of broken chain that are disconnected. the contact throughout must be conceived as absolute; and yet perfect contact is inconceivable by us, for on becoming perfect it ceases to be contact, and becomes essential, once for all inseverable, identity. the most absolute contact short of this is still contact by courtesy only. so here, as everywhere else, eurydice glides off as we are about to grasp her. we can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket. presently my own blind finger-ends fished up the conclusion, that as i had neither time nor money to spend on perfecting the chain that would put me in full spiritual contact with mr. sweeting's turtles, i had better leave them to complete their education at someone else's expense rather than mine, so i walked on towards the bank. as i did so it struck me how continually we are met by this melting of one existence into another. the limits of the body seem well defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far. what, for example, can seem more distinct from a man than his banker or his solicitor? yet these are commonly so much parts of him that he can no more cut them off and grow new ones, than he can grow new legs or arms; neither must he wound his solicitor; a wound in the solicitor is a very serious thing. as for his bank--failure of his bank's action may be as fatal to a man _as_ failure of his heart. i have said nothing about the medical or spiritual adviser, but most men grow into the society that surrounds them by the help of these four main tap-roots, and not only into the world of humanity, but into the universe at large. we can, indeed, grow butchers, bakers, and greengrocers, almost ad libitum, but these are low developments, and correspond to skin, hair, or finger-nails. those of us again who are not highly enough organized to have grown a solicitor or banker can generally repair the loss of whatever social organization they may possess as freely as lizards are said to grow new tails; but this with the higher social, as well as organic, developments is only possible to a very limited extent. the doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls--a doctrine to which the foregoing considerations are for the most part easy corollaries--crops up no matter in what direction we allow our thoughts to wander. and we meet instances of transmigration of body as well as of soul. i do not mean that both body and soul have transmigrated together, far from it; but that, as we can often recognize a transmigrated mind in an alien body, so we not less often see a body that is clearly only a transmigration, linked on to someone else's new and alien soul. we meet people every day whose bodies are evidently those of men and women long dead, but whose appearance we know through their portraits. we see them going about in omnibuses, railway carriages, and in all public places. the cards have been shuffled, and they have drawn fresh lots in life and nationalities, but anyone fairly well up in medieval and lastcentury portraiture knows them at a glance. going down once towards italy i saw a young man in the train whom i recognized, only he seemed to have got younger. he was with a friend, and his face was in continual play, but for some little time i puzzled in vain to recollect where it was that i had seen him before. all of a sudden i remembered he was king francis i of france. i had hitherto thought the face of this king impossible, but when i saw it in play i understood it. his great contemporary henry viii keeps a restaurant in oxford street. falstaff drove one of the st. gothard diligences for many years, and only retired when the railway was opened. titian once made me a pair of boots at vicenza, and not very good ones. at modena i had my hair cut by a young man whom i perceived to be raffaelle. the model who sat to him for his celebrated madonnas is first lady in a confectionery establishment at montreal. she has a little motherly pimple on the left side of her nose that is misleading at first, but on examination she is readily recognized; probably raffaelle's model had the pimple too, but raffaelle left it out--as he would. handel, of course, is madame patey. give madame patey handel's wig and clothes, and there would be no telling her from handel. it is not only that the features and the shape of the head are the same, but there is a certain imperiousness of expression and attitude about handel which he hardly attempts to conceal in madame patey. it is a curious coincidence that he should continue to be such an incomparable renderer of his own music. pope julius ii was the late mr. darwin. rameses ii is a blind woman now, and stands in holborn, holding a tin mug. i never could understand why i always found myself humming "they oppressed them with burthens" when i passed her, till one day i was looking in mr. spooner's window in the strand, and saw a photograph of rameses ii. mary queen of scots wears surgical boots and is subject to fits, near the horse shoe in tottenham court road. michael angelo is a commissionaire; i saw him on board the glen rosa, which used to run every day from london to clacton-on-sea and back. it gave me quite a turn when i saw him coming down the stairs from the upper deck, with his bronzed face, flattened nose, and with the familiar bar upon his forehead. i never liked michael angelo, and never shall, but i am afraid of him, and was near trying to hide when i saw him coming towards me. he had not got his commissionaire's uniform on, and i did not know he was one till i met him a month or so later in the strand. when we got to blackwall the music struck up and people began to dance. i never saw a man dance so much in my life. he did not miss a dance all the way to clacton, nor all the way back again, and when not dancing he was flirting and cracking jokes. i could hardly believe my eyes when i reflected that this man had painted the famous "last judgment," and had made all those statues. dante is, or was a year or two ago, a waiter at brissago on the lago maggiore, only he is better-tempered-looking, and has a more intellectual expression. he gave me his ideas upon beauty: "tutto ch' e vero e bello," he exclaimed, with all his old self-confidence. i am not afraid of dante. i know people by their friends, and he went about with virgil, so i said with some severity, "no, dante, il naso della signora robinson e vero, ma non e bello"; and he admitted i was right. beatrice's name is towler; she is waitress at a small inn in german switzerland. i used to sit at my window and hear people call "towler, towler, towler," fifty times in a forenoon. she was the exact antithesis to abra; abra, if i remember, used to come before they called her name, but no matter how often they called towler, everyone came before she did. i suppose they spelt her name taula, but to me it sounded towler; i never, however, met anyone else with this name. she was a sweet, artless little hussy, who made me play the piano to her, and she said it was lovely. of course i only played my own compositions; so i believed her, and it all went off very nicely. i thought it might save trouble if i did not tell her who she really was, so i said nothing about it. i met socrates once. he was my muleteer on an excursion which i will not name, for fear it should identify the man. the moment i saw my guide i knew he was somebody, but for the life of me i could not remember who. all of a sudden it flashed across me that he was socrates. he talked enough for six, but it was all in dialetto, so i could not understand him, nor, when i had discovered who he was, did i much try to do so. he was a good creature, a trifle given to stealing fruit and vegetables, but an amiable man enough. he had had a long day with his mule and me, and he only asked me five francs. i gave him ten, for i pitied his poor old patched boots, and there was a meekness about him that touched me. "and now, socrates," said i at parting, "we go on our several ways, you to steal tomatoes, i to filch ideas from other people; for the rest-which of these two roads will be the better going, our father which is in heaven knows, but we know not." i have never seen mendelssohn, but there is a fresco of him on the terrace, or open-air dining-room, of an inn at chiavenna. he is not called mendelssohn, but i knew him by his legs. he is in the costume of a dandy of some five-and-forty years ago, is smoking a cigar, and appears to be making an offer of marriage to his cook. beethoven both my friend mr. h. festing jones and i have had the good fortune to meet; he is an engineer now, and does not know one note from another; he has quite lost his deafness, is married, and is, of course, a little squat man with the same refractory hair that he always had. it was very interesting to watch him, and jones remarked that before the end of dinner he had become positively posthumous. one morning i was told the beethovens were going away, and before long i met their two heavy boxes being carried down the stairs. the boxes were so squab and like their owners, that i half thought for a moment that they were inside, and should hardly have been surprised to see them spring up like a couple of jacks-in-thebox. "sono indentro?" said i, with a frown of wonder, pointing to the boxes. the porters knew what i meant, and laughed. but there is no end to the list of people whom i have been able to recognize, and before i had got through it myself, i found i had walked some distance, and had involuntarily paused in front of a second-hand bookstall. i do not like books. i believe i have the smallest library of any literary man in london, and i have no wish to increase it. i keep my books at the british museum and at mudie's, and it makes me very angry if anyone gives me one for my private library. i once heard two ladies disputing in a railway carriage as to whether one of them had or had not been wasting money. "i spent it in books," said the accused, "and it's not wasting money to buy books." "indeed, my dear, i think it is," was the rejoinder, and in practice i agree with it. webster's dictionary, whitaker's almanack, and bradshaw's railway guide should be sufficient for any ordinary library; it will be time enough to go beyond these when the mass of useful and entertaining matter which they provide has been mastered. nevertheless, i admit that sometimes, if not particularly busy, i stop at a second-hand bookstall and turn over a book or two from mere force of habit. i know not what made me pick up a copy of aeschylus--of course in an english version--or rather i know not what made aeschylus take up with me, for he took me rather than i him; but no sooner had he got me than he began puzzling me, as he has done any time this forty years, to know wherein his transcendent merit can be supposed to lie. to me he is, like the greater number of classics in all ages and countries, a literary struldbrug, rather than a true ambrosiafed immortal. there are true immortals, but they are few and far between; most classics are as great impostors dead as they were when living, and while posing as gods are, five-sevenths of them, only struldbrugs. it comforts me to remember that aristophanes liked aeschylus no better than i do. true, he praises him by comparison with sophocles and euripides, but he only does so that he may run down these last more effectively. aristophanes is a safe man to follow, nor do i see why it should not be as correct to laugh with him as to pull a long face with the greek professors; but this is neither here nor there, for no one really cares about aeschylus; the more interesting question is how he contrived to make so many people for so many years pretend to care about him. perhaps he married somebody's daughter. if a man would get hold of the public ear, he must pay, marry, or fight. i have never understood that aeschylus was a man of means, and the fighters do not write poetry, so i suppose he must have married a theatrical manager's daughter, and got his plays brought out that way. the ear of any age or country is like its land, air, and water; it seems limitless but is really limited, and is already in the keeping of those who naturally enough will have no squatting on such valuable property. it is written and talked up to as closely as the means of subsistence are bred up to by a teeming population. there is not a square inch of it but is in private hands, and he who would freehold any part of it must do so by purchase, marriage, or fighting, in the usual way--and fighting gives the longest, safest tenure. the public itself has hardly more voice in the question who shall have its ear, than the land has in choosing its owners. it is farmed as those who own it think most profitable to themselves, and small blame to them; nevertheless, it has a residuum of mulishness which the land has not, and does sometimes dispossess its tenants. it is in this residuum that those who fight place their hope and trust. or perhaps aeschylus squared the leading critics of his time. when one comes to think of it, he must have done so, for how is it conceivable that such plays should have had such runs if he had not? i met a lady one year in switzerland who had some parrots that always travelled with her and were the idols of her life. these parrots would not let anyone read aloud in their presence, unless they heard their own names introduced from time to time. if these were freely interpolated into the text they would remain as still as stones, for they thought the reading was about themselves. if it was not about them it could not be allowed. the leaders of literature are like these parrots; they do not look at what a man writes, nor if they did would they understand it much better than the parrots do; but they like the sound of their own names, and if these are freely interpolated in a tone they take as friendly, they may even give ear to an outsider. otherwise they will scream him off if they can. i should not advise anyone with ordinary independence of mind to attempt the public ear unless he is confident that he can out-lung and out-last his own generation; for if he has any force, people will and ought to be on their guard against him, inasmuch as there is no knowing where he may not take them. besides, they have staked their money on the wrong men so often without suspecting it, that when there comes one whom they do suspect it would be madness not to bet against him. true, he may die before he has out screamed his opponents, but that has nothing to do with it. if his scream was well pitched it will sound clearer when he is dead. we do not know what death is. if we know so little about life which we have experienced, how shall we know about death which we have not--and in the nature of things never can? everyone, as i said years ago in alps and sanctuaries, is an immortal to himself, for he cannot know that he is dead until he is dead, and when dead how can he know anything about anything? all we know is, that even the humblest dead may live long after all trace of the body has disappeared; we see them doing it in the bodies and memories of those that come after them; and not a few live so much longer and more effectually than is desirable, that it has been necessary to get rid of them by act of parliament. it is love that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern. our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them that enter into life--although we know it not. aeschylus did so order himself; but his life is not of that inspiriting kind that can be won through fighting the good fight only--or being believed to have fought it. his voice is the echo of a drone, drone-begotten and drone-sustained. it is not a tone that a man must utter or die--nay, even though he die; and likely enough half the allusions and hard passages in aeschylus of which we can make neither head nor tail are in reality only puffs of some of the literary leaders of his time. the lady above referred to told me more about her parrots. she was like a nasmyth's hammer going slow--very gentle, but irresistible. she always read the newspaper to them. what was the use of having a newspaper if one did not read it to one's parrots? "and have you divined," i asked, "to which side they incline in politics?" "they do not like mr. gladstone," was the somewhat freezing answer; "this is the only point on which we disagree, for i adore him. don't ask more about this, it is a great grief to me. i tell them everything," she continued, "and hide no secret from them." "but can any parrot be trusted to keep a secret?" "mine can." "and on sundays do you give them the same course of reading as on a week-day, or do you make a difference?" "on sundays i always read them a genealogical chapter from the old or new testament, for i can thus introduce their names without profanity. i always keep tea by me in case they should ask for it in the night, and i have an etna to warm it for them; they take milk and sugar. the old white-headed clergyman came to see them last night; it was very painful, for jocko reminded him so strongly of his late . . . " i thought she was going to say "wife," but it proved to have been only of a parrot that he had once known and loved. one evening she was in difficulties about the quarantine, which was enforced that year on the italian frontier. the local doctor had gone down that morning to see the italian doctor and arrange some details. "then, perhaps, my dear," she said to her husband, "he is the quarantine." "no, my love," replied her husband. "the quarantine is not a person, it is a place where they put people"; but she would not be comforted, and suspected the quarantine as an enemy that might at any moment pounce out upon her and her parrots. so a lady told me once that she had been in like trouble about the anthem. she read in her prayer book that in choirs and places where they sing "here followeth the anthem," yet the person with this most mysteriously sounding name never did follow. they had a choir, and no one could say the church was not a place where they sang, for they did sing--both chants and hymns. why, then, this persistent slackness on the part of the anthem, who at this juncture should follow her papa, the rector, into the reading-desk? no doubt he would come some day, and then what would he be like? fair or dark? tall or short? would he be bald and wear spectacles like papa, would he be young and good-looking? anyhow, there was something wrong, for it was announced that he would follow, and he never did follow; therefore there was no knowing what he might not do next. i heard of the parrots a year or two later as giving lessons in italian to an english maid. i do not know what their terms were. alas! since then both they and their mistress have joined the majority. when the poor lady felt her end was near she desired (and the responsibility for this must rest with her, not me) that the birds might be destroyed, as fearing that they might come to be neglected, and knowing that they could never be loved again as she had loved them. on being told that all was over, she said, "thank you," and immediately expired. reflecting in such random fashion, and strolling with no greater method, i worked my way back through cheapside and found myself once more in front of sweeting's window. again the turtles attracted me. they were alive, and so far at any rate they agreed with me. nay, they had eyes, mouths, legs, if not arms, and feet, so there was much in which we were both of a mind, but surely they must be mistaken in arming themselves so very heavily. any creature on getting what the turtle aimed at would overreach itself and be landed not in safety but annihilation. it should have no communion with the outside world at all, for death could creep in wherever the creature could creep out; and it must creep out somewhere if it was to hook on to outside things. what death can be more absolute than such absolute isolation? perfect death, indeed, if it were attainable (which it is not), is as near perfect security as we can reach, but it is not the kind of security aimed at by any animal that is at the pains of defending itself. for such want to have things both ways, desiring the livingness of life without its perils, and the safety of death without its deadness, and some of us do actually get this for a considerable time, but we do not get it by plating ourselves with armour as the turtle does. we tried this in the middle ages, and no longer mock ourselves with the weight of armour that our forefathers carried in battle. indeed the more deadly the weapons of attack become the more we go into the fight slug-wise. slugs have ridden their contempt for defensive armour as much to death as the turtles their pursuit of it. they have hardly more than skin enough to hold themselves together; they court death every time they cross the road. yet death comes not to them more than to the turtle, whose defences are so great that there is little left inside to be defended. moreover, the slugs fare best in the long run, for turtles are dying out, while slugs are not, and there must be millions of slugs all the world over for every single turtle. of the two vanities, therefore, that of the slug seems most substantial. in either case the creature thinks itself safe, but is sure to be found out sooner or later; nor is it easy to explain this mockery save by reflecting that everything must have its meat in due season, and that meat can only be found for such a multitude of mouths by giving everything as meat in due season to something else. this is like the kilkenny cats, or robbing peter to pay paul; but it is the way of the world, and as every animal must contribute in kind to the picnic of the universe, one does not see what better arrangement could be made than the providing each race with a hereditary fallacy, which shall in the end get it into a scrape, but which shall generally stand the wear and tear of life for some time. "do ut des" is the writing on all flesh to him that eats it; and no creature is dearer to itself than it is to some other that would devour it. nor is there any statement or proposition more invulnerable than living forms are. propositions prey upon and are grounded upon one another just like living forms. they support one another as plants and animals do; they are based ultimately on credit, or faith, rather than the cash of irrefragable conviction. the whole universe is carried on on the credit system, and if the mutual confidence on which it is based were to collapse, it must itself collapse immediately. just or unjust, it lives by faith; it is based on vague and impalpable opinion that by some inscrutable process passes into will and action, and is made manifest in matter and in flesh: it is meteoric--suspended in mid-air; it is the baseless fabric of a vision so vast, so vivid, and so gorgeous that no base can seem more broad than such stupendous baselessness, and yet any man can bring it about his ears by being over-curious; when faith fails, a system based on faith fails also. whether the universe is really a paying concern, or whether it is an inflated bubble that must burst sooner or later, this is another matter. if people were to demand cash payment in irrefragable certainty for everything that they have taken hitherto as paper money on the credit of the bank of public opinion, is there money enough behind it all to stand so great a drain even on so great a reserve? probably there is not, but happily there can be no such panic, for even though the cultured classes may do so, the uncultured are too dull to have brains enough to commit such stupendous folly. it takes a long course of academic training to educate a man up to the standard which he must reach before he can entertain such questions seriously, and by a merciful dispensation of providence university training is almost as costly as it is unprofitable. the majority will thus be always unable to afford it, and will base their opinions on mother wit and current opinion rather than on demonstration. so i turned my steps homewards; i saw a good many more things on my way home, but i was told that i was not to see more this time than i could get into twelve pages of the universal review; i must therefore reserve any remark which i think might perhaps entertain the reader for another occasion. the aunt, the nieces, and the dog {127} when a thing is old, broken, and useless we throw it on the dustheap, but when it is sufficiently old, sufficiently broken, and sufficiently useless we give money for it, put it into a museum, and read papers over it which people come long distances to hear. by and by, when the whirligig of time has brought on another revenge, the museum itself becomes a dust-heap, and remains so till after long ages it is rediscovered, and valued as belonging to a neorubbish age--containing, perhaps, traces of a still older paleorubbish civilization. so when people are old, indigent, and in all respects incapable, we hold them in greater and greater contempt as their poverty and impotence increase, till they reach the pitch when they are actually at the point to die, whereon they become sublime. then we place every resource our hospitals can command at their disposal, and show no stint in our consideration for them. it is the same with all our interests. we care most about extremes of importance and of unimportance; but extremes of importance are tainted with fear, and a very imperfect fear casteth out love. extremes of unimportance cannot hurt us, therefore we are well disposed towards them; the means may come to do so, therefore we do not love them. hence we pick a fly out of a milk-jug and watch with pleasure over its recovery, for we are confident that under no conceivable circumstances will it want to borrow money from us; but we feel less sure about a mouse, so we show it no quarter. the compilers of our almanacs well know this tendency of our natures, so they tell us, not when noah went into the ark, nor when the temple of jerusalem was dedicated, but that lindley murray, grammarian, died january 16th, 1826. this is not because they could not find so many as three hundred and sixty-five events of considerable interest since the creation of the world, but because they well know we would rather hear of something less interesting. we care most about what concerns us either very closely, or so little that practically we have nothing whatever to do with it. i once asked a young italian, who professed to have a considerable knowledge of english literature, which of all our poems pleased him best. he replied without a moment's hesitation: "hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon; the little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon." he said this was better than anything in italian. they had dante and tasso, and ever so many more great poets, but they had nothing comparable to "hey diddle diddle," nor had he been able to conceive how anyone could have written it. did i know the author's name, and had we given him a statue? on this i told him of the young lady of harrow who would go to church in a barrow, and plied him with whatever rhyming nonsense i could call to mind, but it was no use; all of these things had an element of reality that robbed them of half their charm, whereas "hey diddle diddle" had nothing in it that could conceivably concern him. so again it is with the things that gall us most. what is it that rises up against us at odd times and smites us in the face again and again for years after it has happened? that we spent all the best years of our life in learning what we have found to be a swindle, and to have been known to be a swindle by those who took money for misleading us? that those on whom we most leaned most betrayed us? that we have only come to feel our strength when there is little strength left of any kind to feel? these things will hardly much disturb a man of ordinary good temper. but that he should have said this or that little unkind and wanton saying; that he should have gone away from this or that hotel and given a shilling too little to the waiter; that his clothes were shabby at such or such a gardenparty--these things gall us _as_ a corn will sometimes do, though the loss of a limb may not be seriously felt. i have been reminded lately of these considerations with more than common force by reading the very voluminous correspondence left by my grandfather, dr. butler, of shrewsbury, whose memoirs i am engaged in writing. i have found a large number of interesting letters on subjects of serious import, but must confess that it is to the hardly less numerous lighter letters that i have been most attracted, nor do i feel sure that my eminent namesake did not share my predilection. among other letters in my possession i have one bundle that has been kept apart, and has evidently no connection with dr. butler's own life. i cannot use these letters, therefore, for my book, but over and above the charm of their inspired spelling, i find them of such an extremely trivial nature that i incline to hope the reader may derive as much amusement from them as i have done myself, and venture to give them the publicity here which i must refuse them in my book. the dates and signatures have, with the exception of mrs. newton's, been carefully erased, but i have collected that they were written by the two servants of a single lady who resided at no great distance from london, to two nieces of the said lady who lived in london itself. the aunt never writes, but always gets one of the servants to do so for her. she appears either as "your aunt" or as "she"; her name is not given, but she is evidently looked upon with a good deal of awe by all who had to do with her. the letters almost all of them relate to visits either of the aunt to london, or of the nieces to the aunt's home, which, from occasional allusions to hopping, i gather to have been in kent, sussex, or surrey. i have arranged them to the best of my power, and take the following to be the earliest. it has no signature, but is not in the handwriting of the servant who styles herself elizabeth, or mrs. newton. it runs:-"madam,--your aunt wishes me to inform you she will be glad if you will let hir know if you think of coming to hir house thiss month or next as she cannot have you in september on a kount of the hoping if you ar coming she thinkes she had batter go to london on the day you com to hir house she says you shall have everry thing raddy for you at hir house and mrs. newton to meet you and stay with you till she returnes a gann. "if you arnot coming thiss summer she will be in london before thiss month is out and will sleep on the sofy as she willnot be in london more thann two nits. and she says she willnot truble you on anny a kount as she will returne the same day before she will plage you anny more. but she thanks you for asking hir to london. but she says she cannot leve the house at prassant she sayhir survants ar to do for you as she cannot lodge yours nor she willnot have thim in at the house anny more to brake and destroy hir thinks and beslive hir and make up lies by hir and skandel as your too did she says she mens to pay fore 2 nits and one day, she says the pepelwill let hir have it if you ask thim to let hir: you will be so good as to let hir know sun: wish she is to do, as she says she dos not care anny thing a bout it. which way tiss she is batter than she was and desirs hir love to bouth bouth. "your aunt wises to know how the silk clocks ar madup [how the silk cloaks are made up] with a cape or a wood as she is a goin to have one madeup to rideout in in hir littel shas [chaise]. "charles is a butty and so good. "mr & mrs newton ar quite wall & desires to be remembered to you." i can throw no light on the meaning of the verb to "beslive." each letter in the ms. is so admirably formed that there can be no question about the word being as i have given it. nor have i been able to discover what is referred to by the words "charles is a butty and so good." we shall presently meet with a charles who "flies in the fier," but that charles appears to have been in london, whereas this one is evidently in kent, or wherever the aunt lived. the next letter is from mrs. newton:-"der miss ---, i receve your letter your aunt is vary ill and lowspireted i donte think your aunt wood git up all day if my sister wasnot to persage her we all think hir lif is two monopolous. you wish to know who was liveing with your aunt. that is my sister and willian --and cariline --as cock and old poll pepper is come to stay with her a littel wile and i hoped [hopped] for your aunt, and harry has worked for your aunt all the summer. your aunt and harry whent to the wells races and spent a very pleasant day your aunt has lost old fanney sow she died about a week a go harry he wanted your aunt to have her killed and send her to london and shee wold fech her 11 pounds the farmers have lost a great deal of cattel such as hogs and cows what theay call the plage i whent to your aunt as you wish mee to do but she told mee she did not wont aney boddy she told mee she should like to come up to see you but she cant come know for she is boddyley ill and harry donte work there know but he go up there once in two or three day harry offered is self to go up to live with your aunt but she made him know ancer. i hav been up to your aunt at work for 5 weeks hopping and ragluting your aunt donte eat nor drink but vary littel indeed. "i am happy to say we are both quite well and i am glad no hear you are both quite well "mrs newton." this seems to have made the nieces propose to pay a visit to their aunt, perhaps to try and relieve the monopoly of her existence and cheer her up a little. in their letter, doubtless, the dog motive is introduced that is so finely developed presently by mrs. newton. i should like to have been able to give the theme as enounced by the nieces themselves, but their letters are not before me. mrs. newton writes:-"my dear girls,--your aunt receiv your letter your aunt will be vary glad to see you as it quite a greeable if it tis to you and shee is quite willing to eair the beds and the rooms if you like to trust to hir and the servantes; if not i may go up there as you wish. my sister sleeps in the best room as she allways did and the coock in the garret and you can have the rooms the same as you allways did as your aunt donte set in the parlour she continlery sets in the ciching. your aunt says she cannot part from the dog know hows and she says he will not hurt you for he is like a child and i can safeley say my self he wonte hurt you as she cannot sleep in the room with out him as he allway sleep in the same room as she dose. your aunt is agreeable to git in what coles and wood you wish for i am know happy to say your aunt is in as good health as ever she was and she is happy to hear you are both well your aunt wishes for ancer by return of post." the nieces replied that their aunt must choose between the dog and them, and mrs. newton sends a second letter which brings her development to a climax. it runs:-"dear miss --i have receve your letter and i whent up to your aunt as you wish me and i try to perveal with her about the dog but she wold not put the dog away nor it alow him to be tied up but she still wishes you to come as shee says the dog shall not interrup you for she donte alow the dog nor it the cats to go in the parlour never sence she has had it donup ferfere of spoiling the paint your aunt think it vary strange you should be so vary much afraid of a dog and she says you cant go out in london but what you are up a gance one and she says she wonte trust the dog in know one hands but her owne for she is afraid theay will not fill is belley as he lives upon rost beeff and rost and boil moutten wich he eats more then the servantes in the house there is not aney one wold beable to give sattefacktion upon that account harry offerd to take the dog but she wood not trust him in our hands so i cold not do aney thing with her your aunt youse to tell me when we was at your house in london she did not know how to make you amens and i told her know it was the time to do it but i considder she sets the dog before you your aunt keep know beer know sprits know wines in the house of aney sort oneley a little barl of wine i made her in the summer the workmen and servantes are a blige to drink wauter morning noon and night your aunt the same she donte low her self aney tee nor coffee but is loocking wonderful well "i still remane your humble servant mrs newton "i am vary sorry to think the dog perventes your comeing "i am glad to hear you are both well and we are the same." the nieces remained firm, and from the following letter it is plain the aunt gave way. the dog motive is repeated pianissimo, and is not returned to--not at least by mrs. newton. "dear miss ---, i receve your letter on thursday i whent to your aunt and i see her and she is a greable to everry thing i asked her and seme so vary much please to see you both next tuseday and she has sent for the faggots to day and she will send for the coles to morrow and i will go up there to morrow morning and make the fiers and tend to the beds and sleep in it till you come down your aunt sends her love to you both and she is quite well your aunt wishes you wold write againe before you come as she ma expeckye and the dog is not to gointo the parlor a tall "your aunt kind love to you both & hopes you wonte fail in coming according to prommis "mrs newton." from a later letter it appears that the nieces did not pay their visit after all, and what is worse a letter had miscarried, and the aunt sat up expecting them from seven till twelve at night, and harry had paid for "faggots and coles quarter of hund. faggots half tun of coles 1l. 1s. 3d." shortly afterwards, however, "she" again talks of coming up to london herself and writes through her servant:-"my dear girls i receve your kind letter & i am happy to hear you ar both well and i was in hopes of seeing of you both down at my house this spring to stay a wile i am quite well my self in helth but vary low spireted i am vary sorry to hear the misforting of poor charles & how he cum to flie in the fier i cannot think. i should like to know if he is dead or a live, and i shall come to london in august & stay three or four daies if it is agreable to you. mrs. newton has lost her mother in law 4 day march & i hope you send me word wather charles is dead or a live as soon as possible, and will you send me word what little betty is for i cannot make her out." the next letter is a new handwriting, and tells the nieces of their aunt's death in the following terms:-"dear miss ---, it is my most painful duty to inform you that your dear aunt expired this morning comparatively easy as hannah informs me and in so doing restored her soul to the custody of him whom she considered to be alone worthy of its care. "the doctor had visited her about five minutes previously and had applied a blister. "you and your sister will i am sure excuse further details at present and believe me with kindest remembrances to remain "yours truly, &c." after a few days a lawyer's letter informs the nieces that their aunt had left them the bulk of her not very considerable property, but had charged them with an annuity of 1 pound a week to be paid to harry and mrs. newton so long as the dog lived. the only other letters by mrs. newton are written on paper of a different and more modern size; they leave an impression of having been written a good many years later. i take them as they come. the first is very short:-"dear miss ---, i write to say i cannot possiblely come on wednesday as we have killed a pig. your's truely, "elizabeth newton." the second runs:-"dear miss ---, i hope you are both quite well in health & your leg much better i am happy to say i am getting quite well again i hope amandy has reached you safe by this time i sent a small parcle by amandy, there was half a dozen pats of butter & the cakes was very homely and not so light as i could wish i hope by this time sarah ann has promised she will stay untill next monday as i think a few daies longer will not make much diferance and as her young man has been very considerate to wait so long as he has i think he would for a few days longer dear miss --i wash for william and i have not got his clothes yet as it has been delayed by the carrier & i cannot possiblely get it done before sunday and i do not like traviling on a sunday but to oblige you i would come but to come sooner i cannot possiblely but i hope sarah ann will be prevailed on once more as she has so many times i feel sure if she tells her young man he will have patient for he is a very kind young man "i remain your sincerely "elizabeth newton." the last letter in my collection seems written almost within measurable distance of the christmas-card era. the sheet is headed by a beautifully embossed device of some holly in red and green, wishing the recipient of the letter a merry xmas and a happy new year, while the border is crimped and edged with blue. i know not what it is, but there is something in the writer's highly finished style that reminds me of mendelssohn. it would almost do for the words of one of his celebrated "lieder ohne worte":-"dear miss maria,--i hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your kind note with the inclosure for which i return my best thanks. i need scarcely say how glad i was to know that the volumes secured your approval, and that the announcement of the improvement in the condition of your sister's legs afforded me infinite pleasure. the gratifying news encouraged me in the hope that now the nature of the disorder is comprehended her legs will--notwithstanding the process may be gradual--ultimately get quite well. the pretty robin redbreast which lay ensconced in your epistle, conveyed to me, in terms more eloquent than words, how much you desired me those compliments which the little missive he bore in his bill expressed; the emblem is sweetly pretty, and now that we are again allowed to felicitate each other on another recurrence of the season of the christian's rejoicing, permit me to tender to yourself, and by you to your sister, mine and my wife's heartfelt congratulations and warmest wishes with respect to the coming year. it is a common belief that if we take a retrospective view of each departing year, as it behoves us annually to do, we shall find the blessings which we have received to immeasurably outnumber our causes of sorrow. speaking for myself i can fully subscribe to that sentiment, and doubtless neither miss --nor yourself are exceptions. miss --'s illness and consequent confinement to the house has been a severe trial, but in that trouble an opportunity was afforded you to prove a sister's devotion and she has been enabled to realise a larger (if possible) display of sisterly affection. "a happy christmas to you both, and may the new year prove a cornucopia from which still greater blessings than even those we have hitherto received, shall issue, to benefit us all by contributing to our temporal happiness and, what is of higher importance, conducing to our felicity hereafter. "i was sorry to hear that you were so annoyed with mice and rats, and if i should have an opportunity to obtain a nice cat i will do so and send my boy to your house with it. "i remain, "yours truly." how little what is commonly called education can do after all towards the formation of a good style, and what a delightful volume might not be entitled "half hours with the worst authors." why, the finest word i know of in the english language was coined, not by my poor old grandfather, whose education had left little to desire, nor by any of the admirable scholars whom he in his turn educated, but by an old matron who presided over one of the halls, or houses of his school. this good lady, whose name by the way was bromfield, had a fine high temper of her own, or thought it politic to affect one. one night when the boys were particularly noisy she burst like a hurricane into the hall, collared a youngster, and told him he was the "rampingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the whole school." would mrs. newton have been able to set the aunt and the dog before us so vividly if she had been more highly educated? would mrs. bromfield have been able to forge and hurl her thunderbolt of a word if she had been taught how to do so, or indeed been at much pains to create it at all? it came. it was her [greek]. she did not probably know that she had done what the greatest scholar would have had to rack his brains over for many an hour before he could even approach. tradition says that having brought down her boy she looked round the hall in triumph, and then after a moment's lull said, "young gentlemen, prayers are excused," and left them. i have sometimes thought that, after all, the main use of a classical education consists in the check it gives to originality, and the way in which it prevents an inconvenient number of people from using their own eyes. that we will not be at the trouble of looking at things for ourselves if we can get anyone to tell us what we ought to see goes without saying, and it is the business of schools and universities to assist us in this respect. the theory of evolution teaches that any power not worked at pretty high pressure will deteriorate: originality and freedom from affectation are all very well in their way, but we can easily have too much of them, and it is better that none should be either original or free from cant but those who insist on being so, no matter what hindrances obstruct, nor what incentives are offered them to see things through the regulation medium. to insist on seeing things for oneself is to be an [greek], or in plain english, an idiot; nor do i see any safer check against general vigour and clearness of thought, with consequent terseness of expression, than that provided by the curricula of our universities and schools of public instruction. if a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him with blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his own risk. he will not be long in finding out his mistake. our public schools and universities play the beneficent part in our social scheme that cattle do in forests: they browse the seedlings down and prevent the growth of all but the luckiest and sturdiest. of course, if there are too many either cattle or schools, they browse so effectually that they find no more food, and starve till equilibrium is restored; but it seems to be a provision of nature that there should always be these alternate periods, during which either the cattle or the trees are getting the best of it; and, indeed, without such provision we should have neither the one nor the other. at this moment the cattle, doubtless, are in the ascendant, and if university extension proceeds much farther, we shall assuredly have no more mrs. newtons and mrs. bromfields; but whatever is is best, and, on the whole, i should propose to let things find pretty much their own level. however this may be, who can question that the treasures hidden in many a country house contain sleeping beauties even fairer than those that i have endeavoured to waken from long sleep in the foregoing article? how many mrs. quicklys are there not living in london at this present moment? for that mrs. quickly was an invention of shakespeare's i will not believe. the old woman from whom he drew said every word that he put into mrs. quickly's mouth, and a great deal more which he did not and perhaps could not make use of. this question, however, would again lead me far from my subject, which i should mar were i to dwell upon it longer, and therefore leave with the hope that it may give my readers absolutely no food whatever for reflection. how to make the best of life {142} i have been asked to speak on the question how to make the best of life, but may as well confess at once that i know nothing about it. i cannot think that i have made the best of my own life, nor is it likely that i shall make much better of what may or may not remain to me. i do not even know how to make the best of the twenty minutes that your committee has placed at my disposal, and as for life as a whole, who ever yet made the best of such a colossal opportunity by conscious effort and deliberation? in little things no doubt deliberate and conscious effort will help us, but we are speaking of large issues, and such kingdoms of heaven as the making the best of these come not by observation. the question, therefore, on which i have undertaken to address you is, as you must all know, fatuous, if it be faced seriously. life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. one cannot make the best of such impossibilities, and the question is doubly fatuous until we are told which of our two lives--the conscious or the unconscious--is held by the asker to be the truer life. which does the question contemplate--the life we know, or the life which others may know, but which we know not? death gives a life to some men and women compared with which their so-called existence here is as nothing. which is the truer life of shakespeare, handel, that divine woman who wrote the odyssey, and of jane austen--the life which palpitated with sensible warm motion within their own bodies, or that in virtue of which they are still palpitating in ours? in whose consciousness does their truest life consist--their own, or ours? can shakespeare be said to have begun his true life till a hundred years or so after he was dead and buried? his physical life was but as an embryonic stage, a coming up out of darkness, a twilight and dawn before the sunrise of that life of the world to come which he was to enjoy hereafter. we all live for a while after we are gone hence, but we are for the most part stillborn, or at any rate die in infancy, as regards that life which every age and country has recognized as higher and truer than the one of which we are now sentient. as the life of the race is larger, longer, and in all respects more to be considered than that of the individual, so is the life we live in others larger and more important than the one we live in ourselves. this appears nowhere perhaps more plainly than in the case of great teachers, who often in the lives of their pupils produce an effect that reaches far beyond anything produced while their single lives were yet unsupplemented by those other lives into which they infused their own. death to such people is the ending of a short life, but it does not touch the life they are already living in those whom they have taught; and happily, as none can know when he shall die, so none can make sure that he too shall not live long beyond the grave; for the life after death is like money before it--no one can be sure that it may not fall to him or her even at the eleventh hour. money and immortality come in such odd unaccountable ways that no one is cut off from hope. we may not have made either of them for ourselves, but yet another may give them to us in virtue of his or her love, which shall illumine us for ever, and establish us in some heavenly mansion whereof we neither dreamed nor shall ever dream. look at the doge loredano loredani, the old man's smile upon whose face has been reproduced so faithfully in so many lands that it can never henceforth be forgotten--would he have had one hundredth part of the life he now lives had he not been linked awhile with one of those heaven-sent men who know che cosa e amor? look at rembrandt's old woman in our national gallery; had she died before she was eightythree years old she would not have been living now. then, when she was eighty-three, immortality perched upon her as a bird on a withered bough. i seem to hear someone say that this is a mockery, a piece of special pleading, a giving of stones to those that ask for bread. life is not life unless we can feel it, and a life limited to a knowledge of such fraction of our work as may happen to survive us is no true life in other people; salve it as we may, death is not life any more than black is white. the objection is not so true as it sounds. i do not deny that we had rather not die, nor do i pretend that much even in the case of the most favoured few can survive them beyond the grave. it is only because this is so that our own life is possible; others have made room for us, and we should make room for others in our turn without undue repining. what i maintain is that a not inconsiderable number of people do actually attain to a life beyond the grave which we can all feel forcibly enough, whether they can do so or not--that this life tends with increasing civilization to become more and more potent, and that it is better worth considering, in spite of its being unfelt by ourselves, than any which we have felt or can ever feel in our own persons. take an extreme case. a group of people are photographed by edison's new process--say titiens, trebelli, and jenny lind, with any two of the finest men singers the age has known--let them be photographed incessantly for half an hour while they perform a scene in lohengrin; let all be done stereoscopically. let them be phonographed at the same time so that their minutest shades of intonation are preserved, let the slides be coloured by a competent artist, and then let the scene be called suddenly into sight and sound, say a hundred years hence. are those people dead or alive? dead to themselves they are, but while they live so powerfully and so livingly in us, which is the greater paradox--to say that they are alive or that they are dead? to myself it seems that their life in others would be more truly life than their death to themselves is death. granted that they do not present all the phenomena of life-who ever does so even when he is held to be alive? we are held to be alive because we present a sufficient number of living phenomena to let the others go without saying; those who see us take the part for the whole here as in everything else, and surely, in the case supposed above, the phenomena of life predominate so powerfully over those of death, that the people themselves must be held to be more alive than dead. our living personality is, as the word implies, only our mask, and those who still own such a mask as i have supposed have a living personality. granted again that the case just put is an extreme one; still many a man and many a woman has so stamped him or herself on his work that, though we would gladly have the aid of such accessories as we doubtless presently shall have to the livingness of our great dead, we can see them very sufficiently through the masterpieces they have left us. as for their own unconsciousness i do not deny it. the life of the embryo was unconscious before birth, and so is the life--i am speaking only of the life revealed to us by natural religion--after death. but as the embryonic and infant life of which we were unconscious was the most potent factor in our after life of consciousness, so the effect which we may unconsciously produce in others after death, and it may be even before it on those who have never seen us, is in all sober seriousness our truer and more abiding life, and the one which those who would make the best of their sojourn here will take most into their consideration. unconsciousness is no bar to livingness. our conscious actions are a drop in the sea as compared with our unconscious ones. could we know all the life that is in us by way of circulation, nutrition, breathing, waste and repair, we should learn what an infinitesimally small part consciousness plays in our present existence; yet our unconscious life is as truly life as our conscious life, and though it is unconscious to itself it emerges into an indirect and vicarious consciousness in our other and conscious self, which exists but in virtue of our unconscious self. so we have also a vicarious consciousness in others. the unconscious life of those that have gone before us has in great part moulded us into such men and women as we are, and our own unconscious lives will in like manner have a vicarious consciousness in others, though we be dead enough to it in ourselves. if it is again urged that it matters not to us how much we may be alive in others, if we are to know nothing about it, i reply that the common instinct of all who are worth considering gives the lie to such cynicism. i see here present some who have achieved, and others who no doubt will achieve, success in literature. will one of them hesitate to admit that it is a lively pleasure to her to feel that on the other side of the world someone may be smiling happily over her work, and that she is thus living in that person though she knows nothing about it? here it seems to me that true faith comes in. faith does not consist, as the sunday school pupil said, "in the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." it consists in holding fast that which the healthiest and most kindly instincts of the best and most sensible men and women are intuitively possessed of, without caring to require much evidence further than the fact that such people are so convinced; and for my own part i find the best men and women i know unanimous in feeling that life in others, even though we know nothing about it, is nevertheless a thing to be desired and gratefully accepted if we can get it either before death or after. i observe also that a large number of men and women do actually attain to such life, and in some cases continue so to live, if not for ever, yet to what is practically much the same thing. our life then in this world is, to natural religion as much as to revealed, a period of probation. the use we make of it is to settle how far we are to enter into another, and whether that other is to be a heaven of just affection or a hell of righteous condemnation. who, then, are the most likely so to run that they may obtain this veritable prize of our high calling? setting aside such lucky numbers, drawn as it were in the lottery of immortality, which i have referred to casually above, and setting aside also the chances and changes from which even immortality is not exempt, who on the whole are most likely to live anew in the affectionate thoughts of those who never so much as saw them in the flesh, and know not even their names? there is a nisus, a straining in the dull dumb economy of things, in virtue of which some, whether they will it and know it or no, are more likely to live after death than others, and who are these? those who aimed at it as by some great thing that they would do to make them famous? those who have lived most in themselves and for themselves, or those who have been most ensouled consciously, but perhaps better unconsciously, directly but more often indirectly, by the most living souls past and present that have flitted near them? can we think of a man or woman who grips us firmly, at the thought of whom we kindle when we are alone in our honest daw's plumes, with none to admire or shrug his shoulders, can we think of one such, the secret of whose power does not lie in the charm of his or her personality--that is to say, in the wideness of his or her sympathy with, and therefore life in and communion with other people? in the wreckage that comes ashore from the sea of time there is much tinsel stuff that we must preserve and study if we would know our own times and people; granted that many a dead charlatan lives long and enters largely and necessarily into our own lives; we use them and throw them away when we have done with them. i do not speak of these, i do not speak of the virgils and alexander popes, and who can say how many more whose names i dare not mention for fear of offending. they are as stuffed birds or beasts in a museum; serviceable no doubt from a scientific standpoint, but with no vivid or vivifying hold upon us. they seem to be alive, but are not. i am speaking of those who do actually live in us, and move us to higher achievements though they be long dead, whose life thrusts out our own and overrides it. i speak of those who draw us ever more towards them from youth to age, and to think of whom is to feel at once that we are in the hands of those we love, and whom we would most wish to resemble. what is the secret of the hold that these people have upon us? is it not that while, conventionally speaking, alive, they most merged their lives in, and were in fullest communion with those among whom they lived? they found their lives in losing them. we never love the memory of anyone unless we feel that he or she was himself or herself a lover. i have seen it urged, again, in querulous accents, that the socalled immortality even of the most immortal is not for ever. i see a passage to this effect in a book that is making a stir as i write. i will quote it. the writer says:-"so, it seems to me, is the immortality we so glibly predicate of departed artists. if they survive at all, it is but a shadowy life they live, moving on through the gradations of slow decay to distant but inevitable death. they can no longer, as heretofore, speak directly to the hearts of their fellow-men, evoking their tears or laughter, and all the pleasures, be they sad or merry, of which imagination holds the secret. driven from the marketplace they become first the companions of the student, then the victims of the specialist. he who would still hold familiar intercourse with them must train himself to penetrate the veil which in ever-thickening folds conceals them from the ordinary gaze; he must catch the tone of a vanished society, he must move in a circle of alien associations, he must think in a language not his own." {150} this is crying for the moon, or rather pretending to cry for it, for the writer is obviously insincere. i see the saturday review says the passage i have just quoted "reaches almost to poetry," and indeed i find many blank verses in it, some of them very aggressive. no prose is free from an occasional blank verse, and a good writer will not go hunting over his work to rout them out, but nine or ten in little more than as many lines is indeed reaching too near to poetry for good prose. this, however, is a trifle, and might pass if the tone of the writer was not so obviously that of cheap pessimism. i know not which is cheapest, pessimism or optimism. one forces lights, the other darks; both are equally untrue to good art, and equally sure of their effect with the groundlings. the one extenuates, the other sets down in malice. the first is the more amiable lie, but both are lies, and are known to be so by those who utter them. talk about catching the tone of a vanished society to understand rembrandt or giovanni bellini! it is nonsense--the folds do not thicken in front of these men; we understand them as well as those among whom they went about in the flesh, and perhaps better. homer and shakespeare speak to us probably far more effectually than they did to the men of their own time, and most likely we have them at their best. i cannot think that shakespeare talked better than we hear him now in hamlet or henry the fourth; like enough he would have been found a very disappointing person in a drawing-room. people stamp themselves on their work; if they have not done so they are naught, if they have we have them; and for the most part they stamp themselves deeper on their work than on their talk. no doubt shakespeare and handel will be one day clean forgotten, as though they had never been born. the world will in the end die; mortality therefore itself is not immortal, and when death dies the life of these men will die with it--but not sooner. it is enough that they should live within us and move us for many ages as they have and will. such immortality, therefore, as some men and women are born to achieve, or have thrust upon them, is a practical if not a technical immortality, and he who would have more let him have nothing. i see i have drifted into speaking rather of how to make the best of death than of life, but who can speak of life without his thoughts turning instantly to that which is beyond it? he or she who has made the best of the life after death has made the best of the life before it; who cares one straw for any such chances and changes as will commonly befall him here if he is upheld by the full and certain hope of everlasting life in the affections of those that shall come after? if the life after death is happy in the hearts of others, it matters little how unhappy was the life before it. and now i leave my subject, not without misgiving that i shall have disappointed you. but for the great attention which is being paid to the work from which i have quoted above, i should not have thought it well to insist on points with which you are, i doubt not, as fully impressed as i am: but that book weakens the sanctions of natural religion, and minimizes the comfort which it affords us, while it does more to undermine than to support the foundations of what is commonly called belief. therefore i was glad to embrace this opportunity of protesting. otherwise i should not have been so serious on a matter that transcends all seriousness. lord beaconsfield cut it shorter with more effect. when asked to give a rule of life for the son of a friend he said, "do not let him try and find out who wrote the letters of junius." pressed for further counsel, he added, "nor yet who was the man in the iron mask"--and he would say no more. don't bore people. and yet i am by no means sure that a good many people do not think themselves ill-used unless he who addresses them has thoroughly well bored them--especially if they have paid any money for hearing him. my great namesake said, "surely the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat," and great as the pleasure both of cheating and boring undoubtedly is, i believe he was right. so i remember a poem which came out some thirty years ago in punch, about a young lady who went forth in quest to "some burden make or burden bear, but which she did not greatly care, oh miserie." so, again, all the holy men and women who in the middle ages professed to have discovered how to make the best of life took care that being bored, if not cheated, should have a large place in their programme. still there are limits, and i close not without fear that i may have exceeded them. the sanctuary of montrigone {153a} the only place in the valsesia, except varallo, where i at present suspect the presence of tabachetti {153b} is at montrigone, a little-known sanctuary dedicated to st. anne, about three-quarters of a mile south of borgo-sesia station. the situation is, of course, lovely, but the sanctuary does not offer any features of architectural interest. the sacristan told me it was founded in 1631; and in 1644 giovanni d'enrico, while engaged in superintending and completing the work undertaken here by himself and giacomo ferro, fell ill and died. i do not know whether or no there was an earlier sanctuary on the same site, but was told it was built on the demolition of a stronghold belonging to the counts of biandrate. the incidents which it illustrates are treated with even more than the homeliness usual in works of this description when not dealing with such solemn events as the death and passion of christ. except when these subjects were being represented, something of the latitude, and even humour, allowed in the old mystery plays was permitted, doubtless from a desire to render the work more attractive to the peasants, who were the most numerous and most important pilgrims. it is not until faith begins to be weak that it fears an occasionally lighter treatment of semi-sacred subjects, and it is impossible to convey an accurate idea of the spirit prevailing at this hamlet of sanctuary without attuning oneself somewhat to the more pagan character of the place. of irreverence, in the sense of a desire to laugh at things that are of high and serious import, there is not a trace, but at the same time there is a certain unbending of the bow at montrigone which is not perceivable at varallo. the first chapel to the left on entering the church is that of the birth of the virgin. st. anne is sitting up in bed. she is not at all ill--in fact, considering that the virgin has only been born about five minutes, she is wonderful; still the doctors think it may be perhaps better that she should keep her room for half an hour longer, so the bed has been festooned with red and white paper roses, and the counterpane is covered with bouquets in baskets and in vases of glass and china. these cannot have been there during the actual birth of the virgin, so i suppose they had been in readiness, and were brought in from an adjoining room as soon as the baby had been born. a lady on her left is bringing in some more flowers, which st. anne is receiving with a smile and most gracious gesture of the hands. the first thing she asked for, when the birth was over, was for her three silver hearts. these were immediately brought to her, and she has got them all on, tied round her neck with a piece of blue silk ribbon. dear mamma has come. we felt sure she would, and that any little misunderstandings between her and joachim would ere long be forgotten and forgiven. they are both so good and sensible, if they would only understand one another. at any rate, here she is, in high state at the right hand of the bed. she is dressed in black, for she has lost her husband some few years previously, but i do not believe a smarter, sprier old lady for her years could be found in palestine, nor yet that either giovanni d'enrico or giacomo ferro could have conceived or executed such a character. the sacristan wanted to have it that she was not a woman at all, but was a portrait of st. joachim, the virgin's father. "sembra una donna," he pleaded more than once, "ma non e donna." surely, however, in works of art even more than in other things, there is no "is" but seeming, and if a figure seems female it must be taken as such. besides, i asked one of the leading doctors at varallo whether the figure was man or woman. he said it was evident i was not married, for that if i had been i should have seen at once that she was not only a woman but a mother-in-law of the first magnitude, or, as he called it, "una suocera tremenda," and this without knowing that i wanted her to be a mother-in-law myself. unfortunately she had no real drapery, so i could not settle the question as my friend mr. h. f. jones and i had been able to do at varallo with the figure of eve that had been turned into a roman soldier assisting at the capture of christ. i am not, however, disposed to waste more time upon anything so obvious, and will content myself with saying that we have here the virgin's grandmother. i had never had the pleasure, so far as i remembered, of meeting this lady before, and was glad to have an opportunity of making her acquaintance. tradition says that it was she who chose the virgin's name, and if so, what a debt of gratitude do we not owe her for her judicious selection! it makes one shudder to think what might have happened if she had named the child keren-happuch, as poor job's daughter was called. how could we have said, "ave keren-happuch!" what would the musicians have done? i forget whether maher-shalal-hash-baz was a man or a woman, but there were plenty of names quite as unmanageable at the virgin's grandmother's option, and we cannot sufficiently thank her for having chosen one that is so euphonious in every language which we need take into account. for this reason alone we should not grudge her her portrait, but we should try to draw the line here. i do not think we ought to give the virgin's great-grandmother a statue. where is it to end? it is like mr. crookes's ultimissimate atoms; we used to draw the line at ultimate atoms, and now it seems we are to go a step farther back and have ultimissimate atoms. how long, i wonder, will it be before we feel that it will be a material help to us to have ultimissimissimate atoms? quavers stopped at demi-semi-demi, but there is no reason to suppose that either atoms or ancestresses of the virgin will be so complacent. i have said that on st. anne's left hand there is a lady who is bringing in some flowers. st. anne was always passionately fond of flowers. there is a pretty story told about her in one of the fathers, i forget which, to the effect that when a child she was asked which she liked best--cakes or flowers? she could not yet speak plainly and lisped out, "oh fowses, pretty fowses"; she added, however, with a sigh and as a kind of wistful corollary, "but cakes are very nice." she is not to have any cakes just now, but as soon as she has done thanking the lady for her beautiful nosegay, she is to have a couple of nice new-laid eggs, that are being brought her by another lady. valsesian women immediately after their confinement always have eggs beaten up with wine and sugar, and one can tell a valsesian birth of the virgin from a venetian or a florentine by the presence of the eggs. i learned this from an eminent valsesian professor of medicine, who told me that, though not according to received rules, the eggs never seemed to do any harm. here they are evidently to be beaten up, for there is neither spoon nor egg-cup, and we cannot suppose that they were hard-boiled. on the other hand, in the middle ages italians never used egg-cups and spoons for boiled eggs. the medieval boiled egg was always eaten by dipping bread into the yolk. behind the lady who is bringing in the eggs is the under-under-nurse who is at the fire warming a towel. in the foreground we have the regulation midwife holding the regulation baby (who, by the way, was an astonishingly fine child for only five minutes old). then comes the under-nurse--a good buxom creature, who, as usual, is feeling the water in the bath to see that it is of the right temperature. next to her is the head-nurse, who is arranging the cradle. behind the head-nurse is the under-under-nurse's drudge, who is just going out upon some errands. lastly--for by this time we have got all round the chapel--we arrive at the virgin's grandmother's bodyguard, a stately, responsible-looking lady, standing in waiting upon her mistress. i put it to the reader--is it conceivable that st. joachim should have been allowed in such a room at such a time, or that he should have had the courage to avail himself of the permission, even though it had been extended to him? at any rate, is it conceivable that he should have been allowed to sit on st. anne's right hand, laying down the law with a "marry, come up" here, and a "marry, go down" there, and a couple of such unabashed collars as the old lady has put on for the occasion? moreover (for i may as well demolish this mischievous confusion between st. joachim and his mother-in-law once and for all), the merest tyro in hagiology knows that st. joachim was not at home when the virgin was born. he had been hustled out of the temple for having no children, and had fled desolate and dismayed into the wilderness. it shows how silly people are, for all the time he was going, if they had only waited a little, to be the father of the most remarkable person of purely human origin who had ever been born, and such a parent as this should surely not be hurried. the story is told in the frescoes of the chapel of loreto, only a quarter of an hour's walk from varallo, and no one can have known it better than d'enrico. the frescoes are explained by written passages that tell us how, when joachim was in the desert, an angel came to him in the guise of a fair, civil young gentleman, and told him the virgin was to be born. then, later on, the same young gentleman appeared to him again, and bade him "in god's name be comforted, and turn again to his content," for the virgin had been actually born. on which st. joachim, who seems to have been of opinion that marriage after all _was_ rather a failure, said that, as things were going on so nicely without him, he would stay in the desert just a little longer, and offered up a lamb as a pretext to gain time. perhaps he guessed about his mother-in-law, or he may have asked the angel. of course, even in spite of such evidence as this, i may be mistaken about the virgin's grandmother's sex, and the sacristan may be right; but i can only say that if the lady sitting by st. anne's bedside at montrigone is the virgin's father-well, in that case i must reconsider a good deal that i have been accustomed to believe was beyond question. taken singly, i suppose that none of the figures in the chapel, except the virgin's grandmother, should be rated very highly. the under-nurse is the next best figure, and might very well be tabachetti's, for neither giovanni d'enrico nor giacomo ferro was successful with his female characters. there is not a single really comfortable woman in any chapel by either of them on the sacro monte at varallo. tabachetti, on the other hand, delighted in women; if they were young he made them comely and engaging, if they were old he gave them dignity and individual character, and the under-nurse is much more in accordance with tabachetti's habitual mental attitude than with d'enrico's or giacomo ferro's. still there are only four figures out of the eleven that are mere otiose supers, and taking the work as a whole it leaves a pleasant impression as being throughout naive and homely, and sometimes, which is of less importance, technically excellent. allowance must, of course, be made for tawdry accessories and repeated coats of shiny oleaginous paint--very disagreeable where it has peeled off and almost more so where it has not. what work could stand against such treatment as the valsesian terra-cotta figures have had to put up with? take the venus of milo; let her be done in terra-cotta, and have run, not much, but still something, in the baking; paint her pink, two oils, all over, and then varnish her--it will help to preserve the paint; glue a lot of horsehair on to her pate, half of which shall have come off, leaving the glue still showing; scrape her, not too thoroughly, get the village drawingmaster to paint her again, and the drawing-master in the next provincial town to put a forest background behind her with the brightest emerald-green leaves that he can do for the money; let this painting and scraping and repainting be repeated several times over; festoon her with pink and white flowers made of tissue paper; surround her with the cheapest german imitations of the cheapest decorations that birmingham can produce; let the night air and winter fogs get at her for three hundred years, and how easy, i wonder, will it be to see the goddess who will be still in great part there? true, in the case of the birth of the virgin chapel at montrigone, there is no real hair and no fresco background, but time has had abundant opportunities without these. i will conclude my notice of this chapel by saying that on the left, above the door through which the under-under-nurse's drudge is about to pass, there is a good painted terra-cotta bust, said--but i believe on no authority--to be a portrait of giovanni d'enrico. others say that the virgin's grandmother is giovanni d'enrico, but this is even more absurd than supposing her to be st. joachim. the next chapel to the birth of the virgin is that of the sposalizio. there is no figure here which suggests tabachetti, but still there are some very good ones. the best have no taint of barocco; the man who did them, whoever he may have been, had evidently a good deal of life and go, was taking reasonable pains, and did not know too much. where this is the case no work can fail to please. some of the figures have real hair and some terra-cotta. there is no fresco background worth mentioning. a man sitting on the steps of the altar with a book on his lap, and holding up his hand to another, who is leaning over him and talking to him, is among the best figures; some of the disappointed suitors who are breaking their wands are also very good. the angel in the annunciation chapel, which comes next in order, is a fine, burly, ship's-figurehead, commercial-hotel sort of being enough, but the virgin is very ordinary. there is no real hair and no fresco background, only three dingy old blistered pictures of no interest whatever. in the visit of mary to elizabeth there are three pleasing subordinate lady attendants, two to the left and one to the right of the principal figures; but these figures themselves are not satisfactory. there is no fresco background. some of the figures have real hair and some terra-cotta. in the circumcision and purification chapel--for both these events seem contemplated in the one that follows--there are doves, but there is neither dog nor knife. still simeon, who has the infant saviour in his arms, is looking at him in a way which can only mean that, knife or no knife, the matter is not going to end here. at varallo they have now got a dreadful knife for the circumcision chapel. they had none last winter. what they have now got would do very well to kill a bullock with, but could not be used professionally with safety for any animal smaller than a rhinoceros. i imagine that someone was sent to novara to buy a knife, and that, thinking it was for the massacre of the innocents chapel, he got the biggest he could see. then when he brought it back people said "chow" several times, and put it upon the table and went away. returning to montrigone, the simeon is an excellent figure, and the virgin is fairly good, but the prophetess anna, who stands just behind her, is by far the most interesting in the group, and is alone enough to make me feel sure that tabachetti gave more or less help here, as he had done years before at orta. she, too, like the virgin's grandmother, is a widow lady, and wears collars of a cut that seems to have prevailed ever since the virgin was born some twenty years previously. there is a largeness and simplicity of treatment about the figure to which none but an artist of the highest rank can reach, and d'enrico was not more than a second or third-rate man. the hood is like handel's truth sailing upon the broad wings of time, a prophetic strain that nothing but the old experience of a great poet can reach. the lips of the prophetess are for the moment closed, but she has been prophesying all the morning, and the people round the wall in the background are in ecstasies at the lucidity with which she has explained all sorts of difficulties that they had never been able to understand till now. they are putting their forefingers on their thumbs and their thumbs on their forefingers, and saying how clearly they see it all and what a wonderful woman anna is. a prophet indeed is not generally without honour save in his own country, but then a country is generally not without honour save with its own prophet, and anna has been glorifying her country rather than reviling it. besides, the rule may not have applied to prophetesses. the death of the virgin is the last of the six chapels inside the church itself. the apostles, who of course are present, have all of them real hair, but, if i may say so, they want a wash and a brushup so very badly that i cannot feel any confidence in writing about them. i should say that, take them all round, they are a good average sample of apostle as apostles generally go. two or three of them are nervously anxious to find appropriate quotations in books that lie open before them, which they are searching with eager haste; but i do not see one figure about which i should like to say positively that it is either good or bad. there is a good bust of a man, matching the one in the birth of the virgin chapel, which is said to be a portrait of giovanni d'enrico, but it is not known whom it represents. outside the church, in three contiguous cells that form part of the foundations, are:-1. a dead christ, the head of which is very impressive, while the rest of the figure is poor. i examined the treatment of the hair, which is terra-cotta, and compared it with all other like hair in the chapels above described; i could find nothing like it, and think it most likely that giacomo ferro did the figure, and got tabachetti to do the head, or that they brought the head from some unused figure by tabachetti at varallo, for i know no other artist of the time and neighbourhood who could have done it. 2. a magdalene in the desert. the desert is a little coal-cellar of an arch, containing a skull and a profusion of pink and white paper bouquets, the two largest of which the magdalene is hugging while she is saying her prayers. she is a very self-sufficient lady, who we may be sure will not stay in the desert a day longer than she can help, and while there will flirt even with the skull if she can find nothing better to flirt with. i cannot think that her repentance is as yet genuine, and as for her praying there is no object in her doing so, for she does not want anything. 3. in the next desert there is a very beautiful figure of st. john the baptist kneeling and looking upwards. this figure puzzles me more than any other at montrigone; it appears to be of the fifteenth rather than the sixteenth century; it hardly reminds me of gaudenzio, and still less of any other valsesian artist. it is a work of unusual beauty, but i can form no idea as to its authorship. i wrote the foregoing pages in the church at montrigone itself, having brought my camp-stool with me. it was sunday; the church was open all day, but there was no mass said, and hardly anyone came. the sacristan was a kind, gentle, little old man, who let me do whatever i wanted. he sat on the doorstep of the main door, mending vestments, and to this end was cutting up a fine piece of figured silk from one to two hundred years old, which, if i could have got it, for half its value, i should much like to have bought. i sat in the cool of the church while he sat in the doorway, which was still in shadow, snipping and snipping, and then sewing, i am sure with admirable neatness. he made a charming picture, with the arched portico over his head, the green grass and low church wall behind him, and then a lovely landscape of wood and pasture and valleys and hillside. every now and then he would come and chirrup about joachim, for he was pained and shocked at my having said that his joachim was someone else and not joachim at all. i said i was very sorry, but i was afraid the figure was a woman. he asked me what he was to do. he had known it, man and boy, this sixty years, and had always shown it as st. joachim; he had never heard anyone but myself question his ascription, and could not suddenly change his mind about it at the bidding of a stranger. at the same time he felt it was a very serious thing to continue showing it as the virgin's father if it was really her grandmother. i told him i thought this was a case for his spiritual director, and that if he felt uncomfortable about it he should consult his parish priest and do as he was told. on leaving montrigone, with a pleasant sense of having made acquaintance with a new and, in many respects, interesting work, i could not get the sacristan and our difference of opinion out of my head. what, i asked myself, are the differences that unhappily divide christendom, and what are those that divide christendom from modern schools of thought, but a seeing of joachims as the virgin's grandmothers on a larger scale? true, we cannot call figures joachim when we know perfectly well that they are nothing of the kind; but i registered a vow that henceforward when i called joachims the virgin's grandmothers i would bear more in mind than i have perhaps always hitherto done, how hard it is for those who have been taught to see them as joachims to think of them as something different. i trust that i have not been unfaithful to this vow in the preceding article. if the reader differs from me, let me ask him to remember how hard it is for one who has got a figure well into his head as the virgin's grandmother to see it as joachim. a medieval girl school {166} this last summer i revisited oropa, near biella, to see what connection i could find between the oropa chapels and those at varallo. i will take this opportunity of describing the chapels at oropa, and more especially the remarkable fossil, or petrified girl school, commonly known as the dimora, or sojourn of the virgin mary in the temple. if i do not take these works so seriously as the reader may expect, let me beg him, before he blames me, to go to oropa and see the originals for himself. have the good people of oropa themselves taken them very seriously? are we in an atmosphere where we need be at much pains to speak with bated breath? we, as is well known, love to take even our pleasures sadly; the italians take even their sadness allegramente, and combine devotion with amusement in a manner that we shall do well to study if not imitate. for this best agrees with what we gather to have been the custom of christ himself, who, indeed, never speaks of austerity but to condemn it. if christianity is to be a living faith, it must penetrate a man's whole life, so that he can no more rid himself of it than he can of his flesh and bones or of his breathing. the christianity that can be taken up and laid down as if it were a watch or a book is christianity in name only. the true christian can no more part from christ in mirth than in sorrow. and, after all, what is the essence of christianity? what is the kernel of the nut? surely common sense and cheerfulness, with unflinching opposition to the charlatanisms and pharisaisms of a man's own times. the essence of christianity lies neither in dogma, nor yet in abnormally holy life, but in faith in an unseen world, in doing one's duty, in speaking the truth, in finding the true life rather in others than in oneself, and in the certain hope that he who loses his life on these behalfs finds more than he has lost. what can agnosticism do against such christianity as this? i should be shocked if anything i had ever written or shall ever write should seem to make light of these things. i should be shocked also if _i_ did not know how to be amused with things that amiable people obviously intended to be amusing. the reader may need to be reminded that oropa is among the somewhat infrequent sanctuaries at which the madonna and infant christ are not white, but black. i shall return to this peculiarity of oropa later on, but will leave it for the present. for the general characteristics of the place i must refer the reader to my book alps and sanctuaries. i propose to confine myself here to the ten or a dozen chapels containing life-sized terra-cotta figures, painted up to nature, that form one of the main features of the place. at a first glance, perhaps, all these chapels will seem uninteresting; i venture to think, however, that some, if not most of them, though falling a good deal short of the best work at varallo and crea, are still in their own way of considerable importance. the first chapel with which we need concern ourselves is numbered 4, and shows the conception of the virgin mary. it represents st. anne as kneeling before a terrific dragon or, as the italians call it, "insect," about the size of a crystal palace pleiosaur. this "insect" is supposed to have just had its head badly crushed by st. anne, who seems to be begging its pardon. the text "ipsa conteret caput tuum" is written outside the chapel. the figures have no artistic interest. as regards dragons being called insects, the reader may perhaps remember that the island of s. giulio, in the lago d'orta, was infested with insetti, which s. giulio destroyed, and which appear, in a fresco underneath the church on the island, to have been monstrous and ferocious dragons; but i cannot remember whether their bodies are divided into three sections, and whether or no they have exactly six legs--without which, i am told, they cannot be true insects. the fifth chapel represents the birth of the virgin. having obtained permission to go inside it, i found the date 1715 cut large and deep on the back of one figure before baking, and i imagine that this date covers the whole. there is a queen anne feeling throughout the composition, and if we were told that the sculptor and francis bird, sculptor of the statue in front of st. paul's cathedral, had studied under the same master, we could very well believe it. the apartment in which the virgin was born is spacious, and in striking contrast to the one in which she herself gave birth to the redeemer. st. anne occupies the centre of the composition, in an enormous bed; on her right there is a lady of the george cruikshank style of beauty, and on the left an older person. both are gesticulating and impressing upon st. anne the enormous obligation she has just conferred upon mankind; they seem also to be imploring her not to overtax her strength, but, strange to say, they are giving her neither flowers nor anything to eat and drink. i know no other birth of the virgin in which st. anne wants so little keeping up. i have explained in my book ex voto, but should perhaps repeat here, that the distinguishing characteristic of the birth of the virgin, as rendered by valsesian artists, is that st. anne always has eggs immediately after the infant is born, and usually a good deal more, whereas the madonna never has anything to eat or drink. the eggs are in accordance with a custom that still prevails among the peasant classes in the valsesia, where women on giving birth to a child generally are given a sabaglione--an egg beaten up with a little wine, or rum, and sugar. east of milan the virgin's mother does not have eggs, and i suppose, from the absence of the eggs at oropa, that the custom above referred to does not prevail in the biellese district. the virgin also is invariably washed. st. john the baptist, when he is born at all, which is not very often, is also washed; but i have not observed that st. elizabeth has anything like the attention paid her that is given to st. anne. what, however, is wanting here at oropa in meat and drink is made up in cupids; they swarm like flies on the walls, clouds, cornices, and capitals of columns. against the right-hand wall are two lady-helps, each warming a towel at a glowing fire, to be ready against the baby should come out of its bath; while in the right-hand foreground we have the levatrice, who having discharged her task, and being now so disposed, has removed the bottle from the chimney-piece, and put it near some bread, fruit and a chicken, over which she is about to discuss the confinement with two other gossips. the levatrice is a very characteristic figure, but the best in the chapel is the one of the head-nurse, near the middle of the composition; she has now the infant in full charge, and is showing it to st. joachim, with an expression as though she were telling him that her husband was a merry man. i am afraid shakespeare was dead before the sculptor was born, otherwise i should have felt certain that he had drawn juliet's nurse from this figure. as for the little virgin herself, i believe her to be a fine boy of about ten months old. viewing the work as a whole, if i only felt more sure what artistic merit really is, i should say that, though the chapel cannot be rated very highly from some standpoints, there are others from which it may be praised warmly enough. it is innocent of anatomy-worship, free from affectation or swagger, and not devoid of a good deal of homely naivete. it can no more be compared with tabachetti or donatello than hogarth can with rembrandt or giovanni bellini; but as it does not transcend the limitations of its age, so neither is it wanting in whatever merits that age possessed; and there is no age without merits of some kind. there is no inscription saying who made the figures, but tradition gives them to pietro aureggio termine, of biella, commonly called aureggio. this is confirmed by their strong resemblance to those in the dimora chapel, in which there is an inscription that names aureggio as the sculptor. the sixth chapel deals with the presentation of the virgin in the temple. the virgin is very small, but it must be remembered that she is only seven years old and she is not nearly so small as she is at crea, where though a life-sized figure is intended, the head is hardly bigger than an apple. she is rushing up the steps with open arms towards the high priest, who is standing at the top. for her it is nothing alarming; it is the high priest who appears frightened; but it will all come right in time. the virgin seems to be saying, "why, don't you know me? i'm the virgin mary." but the high priest does not feel so sure about that, and will make further inquiries. the scene, which comprises some twenty figures, is animated enough, and though it hardly kindles enthusiasm, still does not fail to please. it looks as though of somewhat older date than the birth of the virgin chapel, and i should say shows more signs of direct valsesian influence. in marocco's book about oropa it is ascribed to aureggio, but i find it difficult to accept this. the seventh, and in many respects most interesting chapel at oropa, shows what is in reality a medieval italian girl school, as nearly like the thing itself as the artist could make it; we are expected, however, to see in this the high-class kind of girton college for young gentlewomen that was attached to the temple at jerusalem, under the direction of the chief priest's wife, or some one of his near female relatives. here all well-to-do jewish young women completed their education, and here accordingly we find the virgin, whose parents desired she should shine in every accomplishment, and enjoy all the advantages their ample means commanded. i have met with no traces of the virgin during the years between her presentation in the temple and her becoming head girl at temple college. these years, we may be assured, can hardly have been other than eventful; but incidents, or bits of life, are like living forms--it is only here and there, as by rare chance, that one of them gets arrested and fossilized; the greater number disappear like the greater number of antediluvian molluscs, and no one can say why one of these flies, as it were, of life should get preserved in amber more than another. talk, indeed, about luck and cunning; what a grain of sand as against a hundredweight is cunning's share here as against luck's. what moment could be more humdrum and unworthy of special record than the one chosen by the artist for the chapel we are considering? why should this one get arrested in its flight and made immortal when so many worthier ones have perished? yet preserved it assuredly is; it is as though some fairy's wand had struck the medieval miss pinkerton, amelia sedley, and others who do duty instead of the hebrew originals. it has locked them up as sleeping beauties, whose charms all may look upon. surely the hours are like the women grinding at the mill--the one is taken and the other left, and none can give the reason more than he can say why gallio should have won immortality by caring for none of "these things." it seems to me, moreover, that fairies have changed their practice now in the matter of sleeping beauties, much as shopkeepers have done in regent street. formerly the shopkeeper used to shut up his goods behind strong shutters, so that no one might see them after closing hours. now he leaves everything open to the eye and turns the gas on. so the fairies, who used to lock up their sleeping beauties in impenetrable thickets, now leave them in the most public places they can find, as knowing that they will there most certainly escape notice. look at de hooghe; look at the pilgrim's progress, or even shakespeare himself--how long they slept unawakened, though they were in broad daylight and on the public thoroughfares all the time. look at tabachetti, and the masterpieces he left at varallo. his figures there are exposed to the gaze of every passer-by; yet who heeds them? who, save a very few, even know of their existence? look again at gaudenzio ferrari, or the "danse des paysans," by holbein, to which i ventured to call attention in the universal review. no, no; if a thing be in central africa, it is the glory of this age to find it out; so the fairies think it safer to conceal their proteges under a show of openness; for the schoolmaster is much abroad, and there is no hedge so thick or so thorny as the dulness of culture. it may be, again, that ever so many years hence, when mr. darwin's earth-worms shall have buried oropa hundreds of feet deep, someone sinking a well or making a railway-cutting will unearth these chapels, and will believe them to have been houses, and to contain the exuviae of the living forms that tenanted them. in the meantime, however, let us return to a consideration of the chapel as it may now be seen by anyone who cares to pass that way. the work consists of about forty figures in all, not counting cupids, and is divided into four main divisions. first, there is the large public sitting-room or drawing-room of the college, where the elder young ladies are engaged in various elegant employments. three, at a table to the left, are making a mitre for the bishop, as may be seen from the model on the table. some are merely spinning or about to spin. one young lady, sitting rather apart from the others, is doing an elaborate piece of needlework at a tambour-frame near the window; others are making lace or slippers, probably for the new curate; another is struggling with a letter, or perhaps a theme, which seems to be giving her a good deal of trouble, but which, when done, will, i am sure, be beautiful. one dear little girl is simply reading paul and virginia underneath the window, and is so concealed that i hardly think she can be seen from the outside at all, though from inside she is delightful; it was with great regret that i could not get her into any photograph. one most amiable young woman has got a child's head on her lap, the child having played itself to sleep. all are industriously and agreeably employed in some way or other; all are plump; all are nice-looking; there is not one becky sharp in the whole school; on the contrary, as in "pious orgies," all is pious--or sub-pious--and all, if not great, is at least eminently respectable. one feels that st. joachim and st. anne could not have chosen a school more judiciously, and that if one had a daughter oneself this is exactly where one would wish to place her. if there is a fault of any kind in the arrangements, it is that they do not keep cats enough. the place is overrun with mice, though what these can find to eat i know not. it occurs to me also that the young ladies might be kept a little more free of spiders' webs; but in all these chapels, bats, mice, and spiders are troublesome. off the main drawing-room on the side facing the window there is a dais, which is approached by a large raised semicircular step, higher than the rest of the floor, but lower than the dais itself. the dais is, of course, reserved for the venerable lady principal and the under-mistresses, one of whom, by the way, is a little more mondaine than might have been expected, and is admiring herself in a looking-glass--unless, indeed, she is only looking to see if there is a spot of ink on her face. the lady principal is seated near a table, on which lie some books in expensive bindings, which i imagine to have been presented to her by the parents of pupils who were leaving school. one has given her a photographic album; another a large scrapbook, for illustrations of all kinds; a third volume has red edges, and is presumably of a devotional character. if i dared venture another criticism, i should say it would be better not to keep the ink-pot on the top of these books. the lady principal is being read to by the monitress for the week, whose duty it was to recite selected passages from the most approved hebrew writers; she appears to be a good deal outraged, possibly at the faulty intonation of the reader, which she has long tried vainly to correct; or perhaps she has been hearing of the atrocious way in which her forefathers had treated the prophets, and is explaining to the young ladies how impossible it would be, in their own more enlightened age, for a prophet to fail of recognition. on the half-dais, as i suppose the large semicircular step between the main room and the dais should be called, we find, first, the monitress for the week, who stands up while she recites; and secondly, the virgin herself, who is the only pupil allowed a seat so near to the august presence of the lady principal. she is ostensibly doing a piece of embroidery which is stretched on a cushion on her lap, but i should say that she was chiefly interested in the nearest of four pretty little cupids, who are all trying to attract her attention, though they pay no court to any other young lady. i have sometimes wondered whether the obviously scandalized gesture of the lady principal might not be directed at these cupids, rather than at anything the monitress may have been reading, for she would surely find them disquieting. or she may be saying, "why, bless me! i do declare the virgin has got another hamper, and st. anne's cakes are always so terribly rich!" certainly the hamper is there, close to the virgin, and the lady principal's action may be well directed at it, but it may have been sent to some other young lady, and be put on the sub-dais for public exhibition. it looks as if it might have come from fortnum and mason's, and i half expected to find a label, addressing it to "the virgin mary, temple college, jerusalem," but if ever there was one the mice have long since eaten it. the virgin herself does not seem to care much about it, but if she has a fault it is that she is generally a little apathetic. whose the hamper was, however, is a point we shall never now certainly determine, for the best fossil is worse than the worst living form. why, alas! was not mr. edison alive when this chapel was made? we might then have had a daily phonographic recital of the conversation, and an announcement might be put outside the chapels, telling us at what hours the figures would speak. on either side of the main room there are two annexes opening out from it; these are reserved chiefly for the younger children, some of whom, i think, are little boys. in the left annex, behind the ladies who are making a mitre, there is a child who has got a cake, and another has some fruit--possibly given them by the virgin--and a third child is begging for some of it. the light failed so completely here that i was not able to photograph any of these figures. it was a dull september afternoon, and the clouds had settled thick round the chapel, which is never very light, and is nearly 4000 feet above the sea. i waited till such twilight as made it hopeless that more detail could be got--and a queer ghostly place enough it was to wait in--but after giving the plate an exposure of fifty minutes, i saw i could get no more, and desisted. these long photographic exposures have the advantage that one is compelled to study a work in detail through mere lack of other employment, and that one can take one's notes in peace without being tempted to hurry over them; but even so i continually find i have omitted to note, and have clean forgotten, much that i want later on. in the other annex there are also one or two younger children, but it seems to have been set apart for conversation and relaxation more than any other part of the establishment. i have already said that the work is signed by an inscription inside the chapel, to the effect that the sculptures are by pietro aureggio termine di biella. it will be seen that the young ladies are exceedingly like one another, and that the artist aimed at nothing more than a faithful rendering of the life of his own times. let us be thankful that he aimed at nothing less. perhaps his wife kept a girls' school; or he may have had a large family of fat, goodnatured daughters, whose little ways he had studied attentively; at all events the work is full of spontaneous incident, and cannot fail to become more and more interesting as the age it renders falls farther back into the past. it is to be regretted that many artists, better-known men, have not been satisfied with the humbler ambitions of this most amiable and interesting sculptor. if he has left us no laboured life-studies, he has at least done something for us which we can find nowhere else, which we should be very sorry not to have, and the fidelity of which to italian life at the beginning of the eighteenth century will not be disputed. the eighth chapel is that of the sposalizio, is certainly not by aureggio, and i should say was mainly by the same sculptor who did the presentation in the temple. on going inside i found the figures had come from more than one source; some of them are constructed so absolutely on valsesian principles, as regards technique, that it may be assumed they came from varallo. each of these last figures is in three pieces, that are baked separately and cemented together afterwards, hence they are more easily transported; no more clay is used than is absolutely necessary; and the off-side of the figure is neglected; they will be found chiefly, if not entirely, at the top of the steps. the other figures are more solidly built, and do not remind me in their business features of anything in the valsesia. there was a sculptor, francesco sala, of locarno (doubtless the village a short distance below varallo, and not the locarno on the lago maggiore), who made designs for some of the oropa chapels, and some of whose letters are still preserved, but whether the valsesian figures in this present work are by him or not i cannot say. the statues are twenty-five in number; i could find no date or signature; the work reminds me of montrigone; several of the figures are not at all bad, and several have horsehair for hair, as at varallo. the effect of the whole composition is better than we have a right to expect from any sculpture dating from the beginning of the eighteenth century. the ninth chapel, the annunciation, presents no feature of interest; nor yet does the tenth, the visit of mary to elizabeth. the eleventh, the nativity, though rather better, is still not remarkable. the twelfth, the purification, is absurdly bad, but i do not know whether the expression of strong personal dislike to the virgin which the high priest wears is intended as prophetic, or whether it is the result of incompetence, or whether it is merely a smile gone wrong in the baking. it is amusing to find marocco, who has not been strict about archaeological accuracy hitherto, complain here that there is an anachronism, inasmuch as some young ecclesiastics are dressed as they would be at present, and one of them actually carries a wax candle. this is not as it should be; in works like those at oropa, where implicit reliance is justly placed on the earnest endeavours that have been so successfully made to thoroughly and carefully and patiently ensure the accuracy of the minutest details, it is a pity that even a single error should have escaped detection; this, however, has most unfortunately happened here, and marocco feels it his duty to put us on our guard. he explains that the mistake arose from the sculptor's having taken both his general arrangement and his details from some picture of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, when the value of the strictest historical accuracy was not yet so fully understood. it seems to me that in the matter of accuracy, priests and men of science whether lay or regular on the one hand, and plain people whether lay or regular on the other, are trying to play a different game, and fail to understand one another because they do not see that their objects are not the same. the cleric and the man of science (who is only the cleric in his latest development) are trying to develop a throat with two distinct passages--one that shall refuse to pass even the smallest gnat, and another that shall gracefully gulp even the largest camel; whereas we men of the street desire but one throat, and are content that this shall swallow nothing bigger than a pony. everyone knows that there is no such effectual means of developing the power to swallow camels as incessant watchfulness for opportunities of straining at gnats, and this should explain many passages that puzzle us in the work both of our clerics and our scientists. i, not being a man of science, still continue to do what i said i did in alps and sanctuaries, and make it a rule to earnestly and patiently and carefully swallow a few of the smallest gnats i can find several times a day, as the best astringent for the throat i know of. the thirteenth chapel is the marriage feast at cana of galilee. this is the best chapel as a work of art; indeed, it is the only one which can claim to be taken quite seriously. not that all the figures are very good; those to the left of the composition are commonplace enough; nor are the christ and the giver of the feast at all remarkable; but the ten or dozen figures of guests and attendants at the right-hand end of the work are as good as anything of their kind can be, and remind me so strongly of tabachetti that i cannot doubt they were done by someone who was indirectly influenced by that great sculptor's work. it is not likely that tabachetti was alive long after 1640, by which time he would have been about eighty years old; and the foundations of this chapel were not laid till about 1690; the statues are probably a few years later; they can hardly, therefore, be by one who had even studied under tabachetti; but until i found out the dates, and went inside the chapel to see the way in which the figures had been constructed, i was inclined to think they might be by tabachetti himself, of whom, indeed, they are not unworthy. on examining the figures i found them more heavily constructed than tabachetti's are, with smaller holes for taking out superfluous clay, and more finished on the off-sides. marocco says the sculptor is not known. i looked in vain for any date or signature. possibly the right-hand figures (for the left-hand ones can hardly be by the same hand) may be by some sculptor from crea, which is at no very great distance from oropa, who was penetrated by tabachetti's influence; but whether as regards action and concert with one another, or as regards excellence in detail, i do not see how anything can be more realistic, and yet more harmoniously composed. the placing of the musicians in a minstrels' gallery helps the effect; these musicians are six in number, and the other figures are twenty-three. under the table, between christ and the giver of the feast, there is a cat. the fourteenth chapel, the assumption of the virgin mary, is without interest. the fifteenth, the coronation of the virgin, contains forty-six angels, twenty-six cherubs, fifty-six saints, the holy trinity, the madonna herself, and twenty-four innocents, making 156 statues in all. of these i am afraid there is not one of more than ordinary merit; the most interesting is a half-length nude life-study of disma--the good thief. after what had been promised him it was impossible to exclude him, but it was felt that a half-length nude figure would be as much as he could reasonably expect. behind the sanctuary there is a semi-ruinous and wholly valueless work, which shows the finding of the black image, which is now in the church, but is only shown on great festivals. this leads us to a consideration that i have delayed till now. the black image is the central feature of oropa; it is the raison d'etre of the whole place, and all else is a mere incrustation, so to speak, around it. according to this image, then, which was carved by st. luke himself, and than which nothing can be better authenticated, both the madonna and the infant christ were as black as anything can be conceived. it is not likely that they were as black as they have been painted; no one yet ever was so black as that; yet, even allowing for some exaggeration on st. luke's part, they must have been exceedingly black if the portrait is to be accepted; and uncompromisingly black they accordingly are on most of the wayside chapels for many a mile around oropa. yet in the chapels we have been hitherto considering--works in which, as we know, the most punctilious regard has been shown to accuracy--both the virgin and christ are uncompromisingly white. as in the shops under the colonnade where devotional knick-knacks are sold, you can buy a black china image or a white one, whichever you like; so with the pictures--the black and white are placed side by side--pagando il danaro si puo scegliere. it rests not with history or with the church to say whether the madonna and child were black or white, but you may settle it for yourself, whichever way you please, or rather you are required, with the acquiescence of the church, to hold that they were both black and white at one and the same time. it cannot be maintained that the church leaves the matter undecided, and by tolerating both types proclaims the question an open one, for she acquiesces in the portrait by st. luke as genuine. how, then, justify the whiteness of the holy family in the chapels? if the portrait is not known as genuine, why set such a stumbling-block in our paths as to show us a black madonna and a white one, both as historically accurate, within a few yards of one another? i ask this not in mockery, but as knowing that the church must have an explanation to give, if she would only give it, and as myself unable to find any, even the most far-fetched, that can bring what we see at oropa, loreto and elsewhere into harmony with modern conscience, either intellectual or ethical. i see, indeed, from an interesting article in the atlantic monthly for september, 1889, entitled "the black madonna of loreto," that black madonnas were so frequent in ancient christian art that "some of the early writers of the church felt obliged to account for it by explaining that the virgin was of a very dark complexion, as might be proved by the verse of canticles which says, 'i am black, but comely, o ye daughters of jerusalem.' others maintained that she became black during her sojourn in egypt. . . . priests, of to-day, say that extreme age and exposure to the smoke of countless altarcandles have caused that change in complexion which the more naive fathers of the church attributed to the power of an egyptian sun"; but the writer ruthlessly disposes of this supposition by pointing out that in nearly all the instances of black madonnas it is the flesh alone that is entirely black, the crimson of the lips, the white of the eyes, and the draperies having preserved their original colour. the authoress of the article (mrs. hilliard) goes on to tell us that pausanias mentions two statues of the black venus, and says that the oldest statue of ceres among the phigalenses was black. she adds that minerva aglaurus, the daughter of cecrops, at athens, was black; that corinth had a black venus, as also the thespians; that the oracles of dodona and delphi were founded by black doves, the emissaries of venus, and that the isis multimammia in the capitol at rome is black. sometimes i have asked myself whether the church does not intend to suggest that the whole story falls outside the domain of history, and is to be held as the one great epos, or myth, common to all mankind; adaptable by each nation according to its own several needs; translatable, so to speak, into the facts of each individual nation, as the written word is translatable into its language, but appertaining to the realm of the imagination rather than to that of the understanding, and precious for spiritual rather than literal truths. more briefly, i have wondered whether she may not intend that such details as whether the virgin was white or black are of very little importance in comparison with the basing of ethics on a story that shall appeal to black races as well as to white ones. if so, it is time we were made to understand this more clearly. if the church, whether of rome or england, would lean to some such view as this--tainted though it be with mysticism--if we could see either great branch of the church make a frank, authoritative attempt to bring its teaching into greater harmony with the educated understanding and conscience of the time, instead of trying to fetter that understanding with bonds that gall it daily more and more profoundly; then i, for one, in view of the difficulty and graciousness of the task, and in view of the great importance of historical continuity, would gladly sink much of my own private opinion as to the value of the christian ideal, and would gratefully help either church or both, according to the best of my very feeble ability. on these terms, indeed, i could swallow not a few camels myself cheerfully enough. can we, however, see any signs as though either rome or england will stir hand or foot to meet us? can any step be pointed to as though either church wished to make things easier for men holding the opinions held by the late mr. darwin, or by mr. herbert spencer and professor huxley? how can those who accept evolution with any thoroughness accept such doctrines as the incarnation or the redemption with any but a quasi-allegorical and poetical interpretation? can we conceivably accept these doctrines in the literal sense in which the church advances them? and can the leaders of the church be blind to the resistlessness of the current that has set against those literal interpretations which she seems to hug more and more closely the more religious life is awakened at all? the clergyman is wanted as supplementing the doctor and the lawyer in all civilized communities; these three keep watch on one another, and prevent one another from becoming too powerful. i, who distrust the doctrinaire in science even more than the doctrinaire in religion, should view with dismay the abolition of the church of england, as knowing that a blatant bastard science would instantly step into her shoes; but if some such deplorable consummation is to be avoided in england, it can only be through more evident leaning on the part of our clergy to such an interpretation of the sacred history as the presence of a black and white madonna almost side by side at oropa appears to suggest. i fear that in these last paragraphs i may have trenched on dangerous ground, but it is not possible to go to such places as oropa without asking oneself what they mean and involve. as for the average italian pilgrims, they do not appear to give the matter so much as a thought. they love oropa, and flock to it in thousands during the summer; the president of the administration assured me that they lodged, after a fashion, as many as ten thousand pilgrims on the 15th of last august. it is astonishing how living the statues are to these people, and how the wicked are upbraided and the good applauded. at varallo, since i took the photographs i published in my book ex voto, an angry pilgrim has smashed the nose of the dwarf in tabachetti's journey to calvary, for no other reason than inability to restrain his indignation against one who was helping to inflict pain on christ. it is the real hair and the painting up to nature that does this. here at oropa i found a paper on the floor of the sposalizio chapel, which ran as follows:-"by the grace of god and the will of the administrative chapter of this sanctuary, there have come here to work -----, mason, ----, carpenter, and -----, plumber, all of chiavazza, on the twentyfirst day of january, 1886, full of cold (pieni di freddo). "they write these two lines to record their visit. they pray the blessed virgin that she will maintain them safe and sound from everything equivocal that may befall them (sempre sani e salvi da ogni equivoco li possa accadere). oh, farewell! we reverently salute all the present statues, and especially the blessed virgin, and the reader." through the universal review, i suppose, all its readers are to consider themselves saluted; at any rate, these good fellows, in the effusiveness of their hearts, actually wrote the above in pencil. i was sorely tempted to steal it, but, after copying it, left it in the chief priest's hands instead. art in the valley of saas {188} having been told by mr. fortescue, of the british museum, that there were some chapels at saas-fee which bore analogy to those at varallo, described in my book ex voto, i went to saas during this last summer, and venture now to lay my conclusions before the reader. the chapels are fifteen in number, and lead up to a larger and singularly graceful one, rather more than half-way between saas and saas-fee. this is commonly but wrongly called the chapel of st. joseph, for it is dedicated to the virgin, and its situation is of such extreme beauty--the great fee glaciers showing through the open portico--that it is in itself worth a pilgrimage. it is surrounded by noble larches and overhung by rock; in front of the portico there is a small open space covered with grass, and a huge larch, the stem of which is girt by a rude stone seat. the portico itself contains seats for worshippers, and a pulpit from which the preacher's voice can reach the many who must stand outside. the walls of the inner chapel are hung with votive pictures, some of them very quaint and pleasing, and not overweighted by those qualities that are usually dubbed by the name of artistic merit. innumerable wooden and waxen representations of arms, legs, eyes, ears and babies tell of the cures that have been effected during two centuries of devotion, and can hardly fail to awaken a kindly sympathy with the long dead and forgotten folks who placed them where they are. the main interest, however, despite the extreme loveliness of the st. mary's chapel, centres rather in the small and outwardly unimportant oratories (if they should be so called) that lead up to it. these begin immediately with the ascent from the level ground on which the village of saas-im-grund is placed, and contain scenes in the history of the redemption, represented by rude but spirited wooden figures, each about two feet high, painted, gilt, and rendered as life-like in all respects as circumstances would permit. the figures have suffered a good deal from neglect, and are still not a little misplaced. with the assistance, however, of the rev. e. j. selwyn, english chaplain at saas-im-grund, i have been able to replace many of them in their original positions, as indicated by the parts of the figures that are left rough-hewn and unpainted. they vary a good deal in interest, and can be easily sneered at by those who make a trade of sneering. those, on the other hand, who remain unsophisticated by overmuch art-culture will find them full of character in spite of not a little rudeness of execution, and will be surprised at coming across such works in a place so remote from any art-centre as saas must have been at the time these chapels were made. it will be my business therefore to throw what light i can upon the questions how they came to be made at all, and who was the artist who designed them. the only documentary evidence consists in a chronicle of the valley of saas written in the early years of this century by the rev. peter jos. ruppen, and published at sion in 1851. this work makes frequent reference to a manuscript by the rev. peter joseph clemens lommatter, cure of saas-fee from 1738 to 1751, which has unfortunately been lost, so that we have no means of knowing how closely it was adhered to. the rev. jos. ant. ruppen, the present excellent cure of saas-im-grund, assures me that there is no reference to the saas-fee oratories in the "actes de l'eglise" at saas, which i understand go a long way back; but i have not seen these myself. practically, then, we have no more documentary evidence than is to be found in the published chronicle above referred to. we there find it stated that the large chapel, commonly, but as above explained, wrongly called st. joseph's, was built in 1687, and enlarged by subscription in 1747. these dates appear on the building itself, and are no doubt accurate. the writer adds that there was no actual edifice on this site before the one now existing was built, but there was a miraculous picture of the virgin placed in a mural niche, before which the pious herdsmen and devout inhabitants of the valley worshipped under the vault of heaven. {190} a miraculous (or miracle-working) picture was always more or less rare and important; the present site, therefore, seems to have been long one of peculiar sanctity. possibly the name fee may point to still earlier pagan mysteries on the same site. as regards the fifteen small chapels, the writer says they illustrate the fifteen mysteries of the psalter, and were built in 1709, each householder of the saas-fee contributing one chapel. he adds that heinrich andenmatten, afterwards a brother of the society of jesus, was an especial benefactor or promoter of the undertaking. one of the chapels, the ascension (no. 12 of the series), has the date 1709 painted on it; but there is no date on any other chapel, and there seems no reason why this should be taken as governing the whole series. over and above this, there exists in saas a tradition, as i was told immediately on my arrival, by an english visitor, that the chapels were built in consequence of a flood, but i have vainly endeavoured to trace this story to an indigenous source. the internal evidence of the wooden figures themselves--nothing analogous to which, it should be remembered, can be found in the chapel of 1687--points to a much earlier date. i have met with no school of sculpture belonging to the early part of the eighteenth century to which they can be plausibly assigned; and the supposition that they are the work of some unknown local genius who was not led up to and left no successors may be dismissed, for the work is too scholarly to have come from anyone but a trained sculptor. i refer of course to those figures which the artist must be supposed to have executed with his own hand, as, for example, the central figure of the crucifixion group and those of the magdalene and st. john. the greater number of the figures were probably, as was suggested to me by mr. ranshaw, of lowth, executed by a local wood-carver from models in clay and wax furnished by the artist himself. those who examine the play of line in the hair, mantle, and sleeve of the magdalene in the crucifixion group, and contrast it with the greater part of the remaining draperies, will find little hesitation in concluding that this was the case, and will ere long readily distinguish the two hands from which the figures have mainly come. i say "mainly," because there is at least one other sculptor who may well have belonged to the year 1709, but who fortunately has left us little. examples of his work may perhaps be seen in the nearest villain with a big hat in the flagellation chapel, and in two cherubs in the assumption of the virgin. we may say, then, with some certainty, that the designer was a cultivated and practised artist. we may also not less certainly conclude that he was of flemish origin, for the horses in the journey to calvary and crucifixion chapels, where alone there are any horses at all, are of flemish breed, with no trace of the arab blood adopted by gaudenzio at varallo. the character, moreover, of the villains is northern--of the quentin matsys, martin schongauer type, rather than italian; the same sub-rubensesque feeling which is apparent in more than one chapel at varallo is not less evident here--especially in the journey to calvary and crucifixion chapels. there can hardly, therefore, be a doubt that the artist was a fleming who had worked for several years in italy. it is also evident that he had tabachetti's work at varallo well in his mind. for not only does he adopt certain details of costume (i refer particularly to the treatment of soldiers' tunics) which are peculiar to tabachetti at varallo, but whenever he treats a subject which tabachetti had treated at varallo, as in the flagellation, crowning with thorns, and journey to calvary chapels, the work at saas is evidently nothing but a somewhat modified abridgment of that at varallo. when, however, as in the annunciation, the nativity, the crucifixion, and other chapels, the work at varallo is by another than tabachetti, no allusion is made to it. the saas artist has tabachetti's varallo work at his finger-ends, but betrays no acquaintance whatever with gaudenzio ferrari, gio. ant. paracca, or giovanni d'enrico. even, moreover, when tabachetti's work at varallo is being most obviously drawn from, as in the journey to calvary chapel, the saas version differs materially from that at varallo, and is in some respects an improvement on it. the idea of showing other horsemen and followers coming up from behind, whose heads can be seen over the crown of the interposing hill, is singularly effective as suggesting a number of others that are unseen, nor can i conceive that anyone but the original designer would follow tabachetti's varallo design with as much closeness as it has been followed here, and yet make such a brilliantly successful modification. the stumbling, again, of one horse (a detail almost hidden, according to tabachetti's wont) is a touch which tabachetti himself might add, but which no saas wood-carver who was merely adapting from a reminiscence of tabachetti's varallo chapel would be likely to introduce. these considerations have convinced me that the designer of the chapels at saas is none other than tabachetti himself, who, as has been now conclusively shown, was a native of dinant, in belgium. the saas chronicler, indeed, avers that the chapels were not built till 1709--a statement apparently corroborated by a date now visible on one chapel; but we must remember that the chronicler did not write until a century or so later than 1709, and though indeed, his statement may have been taken from the lost earlier manuscript of 1738, we know nothing about this either one way or the other. the writer may have gone by the still existing 1709 on the ascension chapel, whereas this date may in fact have referred to a restoration, and not to an original construction. there is nothing, as i have said, in the choice of the chapel on which the date appears, to suggest that it was intended to govern the others. i have explained that the work is isolated and exotic. it is by one in whom flemish and italian influences are alike equally predominant; by one who was saturated with tabachetti's varallo work, and who can improve upon it, but over whom the other varallo sculptors have no power. the style of the work is of the sixteenth and not of the eighteenth century--with a few obvious exceptions that suit the year 1709 exceedingly well. against such considerations as these, a statement made at the beginning of this century referring to a century earlier and a promiscuous date upon one chapel, can carry but little weight. i shall assume, therefore, henceforward, that we have here groups designed in a plastic material by tabachetti, and reproduced in wood by the best local wood-sculptor available, with the exception of a few figures cut by the artist himself. we ask, then, at what period in his life did tabachetti design these chapels, and what led to his coming to such an out-of-the-way place as saas at all? we should remember that, according both to fassola and torrotti (writing in 1671 and 1686 respectively), tabachetti {195} became insane about the year 1586 or early in 1587, after having just begun the salutation chapel. i have explained in ex voto that i do not believe this story. i have no doubt that tabachetti was declared to be mad, but i believe this to have been due to an intrigue, set on foot in order to get a foreign artist out of the way, and to secure the massacre of the innocents chapel, at that precise time undertaken, for gio. ant. paracca, who was an italian. or he may have been sacrificed in order to facilitate the return of the workers in stucco whom he had superseded on the sacro monte. he may have been goaded into some imprudence which was seized upon as a pretext for shutting him up; at any rate, the fact that when in 1587 he inherited his father's property at dinant, his trustee (he being expressly stated to be "expatrie") was "datif," "dativus," appointed not by himself but by the court, lends colour to the statement that he was not his own master at the time; for in later kindred deeds, now at namur, he appoints his own trustee. i suppose, then, that tabachetti was shut up in a madhouse at varallo for a considerable time, during which i can find no trace of him, but that eventually he escaped or was released. whether he was a fugitive, or whether he was let out from prison, he would in either case, in all reasonable probability, turn his face homeward. if he was escaping, he would make immediately for the savoy frontier, within which saas then lay. he would cross the baranca above fobello, coming down on to ponte grande in the val anzasca. he would go up the val anzasca to macugnaga, and over the monte moro, which would bring him immediately to saas. saas, therefore, is the nearest and most natural place for him to make for, if he were flying from varallo, and here i suppose him to have halted. it so happened that on the 9th of september, 1589, there was one of the three great outbreaks of the mattmark see that have from time to time devastated the valley of saas. {196} it is probable that the chapels were decided upon in consequence of some grace shown by the miraculous picture of the virgin, which had mitigated a disaster occurring so soon after the anniversary of her own nativity. tabachetti, arriving at this juncture, may have offered to undertake them if the saas people would give him an asylum. here, at any rate, i suppose him to have stayed till some time in 1590, probably the second half of it; his design of eventually returning home, if he ever entertained it, being then interrupted by a summons to crea near casale, where i believe him to have worked with a few brief interruptions thenceforward for little if at all short of half a century, or until about the year 1640. i admit, however, that the evidence for assigning him so long a life rests solely on the supposed identity of the figure known as "il vecchietto," in the varallo descent from the cross chapel, with the portrait of tabachetti himself in the ecce homo chapel, also at varallo. i find additional reason for thinking the chapels owe their origin to the inundation of 9th september, 1589, in the fact that the 8th of september is made a day of pilgrimage to the saas-fee chapels throughout the whole valley of saas. it is true the 8th of september is the festival of the nativity of the virgin mary, so that under any circumstances this would be a great day, but the fact that not only the people of saas, but the whole valley down to visp, flock to this chapel on the 8th of september, points to the belief that some special act of grace on the part of the virgin was vouchsafed on this day in connection with this chapel. a belief that it was owing to the intervention of st. mary of fee that the inundation was not attended with loss of life would be very likely to lead to the foundation of a series of chapels leading up to the place where her miraculous picture was placed, and to the more special celebration of her nativity in connection with this spot throughout the valley of saas. i have discussed the subject with the rev. jos. ant. ruppen, and he told me he thought the fact that the great fete of the year in connection with the saas-fee chapels was on the 8th of september pointed rather strongly to the supposition that there was a connection between these and the recorded flood of 9th september, 1589. turning to the individual chapels they are as follows:-1. the annunciation. the treatment here presents no more analogy to that of the same subject at varallo than is inevitable in the nature of the subject. the annunciation figures at varallo have proved to be mere draped dummies with wooden heads; tabachetti, even though he did the heads, which he very likely did, would take no interest in the varallo work with the same subject. the annunciation, from its very simplicity as well as from the transcendental nature of the subject, is singularly hard to treat, and the work here, whatever it may once have been, is now no longer remarkable. 2. the salutation of mary by elizabeth. this group, again, bears no analogy to the salutation chapel at varallo, in which tabachetti's share was so small that it cannot be considered as in any way his. it is not to be expected, therefore, that the saas chapel should follow the varallo one. the figures, four in number, are pleasing and well arranged. st. joseph, st. elizabeth, and st. zacharias are all talking at once. the virgin is alone silent. 3. the nativity is much damaged and hard to see. the treatment bears no analogy to that adopted by gaudenzio ferrari at varallo. there is one pleasing young shepherd standing against the wall, but some figures have no doubt (as in others of the chapels) disappeared, and those that remain have been so shifted from their original positions that very little idea can be formed of what the group was like when tabachetti left it. 4. the purification. i can hardly say why this chapel should remind me, as it does, of the circumcision chapel at varallo, for there are more figures here than space at varallo will allow. it cannot be pretended that any single figure is of extraordinary merit, but amongst them they tell their story with excellent effect. two, those of st. joseph and st. anna (?), that doubtless were once more important factors in the drama, are now so much in corners near the window that they can hardly be seen. 5. the dispute in the temple. this subject is not treated at varallo. here at saas there are only six doctors now; whether or no there were originally more cannot be determined. 6. the agony in the garden. tabachetti had no chapel with this subject at varallo, and there is no resemblance between the saas chapel and that by d'enrico. the figures are no doubt approximately in their original positions, but i have no confidence that i have rearranged them correctly. they were in such confusion when i first saw them that the rev. e. j. selwyn and myself determined to rearrange them. they have doubtless been shifted more than once since tabachetti left them. the sleeping figures are all good. st. james is perhaps a little prosaic. one roman soldier who is coming into the garden with a lantern, and motioning silence with his hand, does duty for the others that are to follow him. i should think more than one of these figures is actually carved in wood by tabachetti, allowance being made for the fact that he was working in a material with which he was not familiar, and which no sculptor of the highest rank has ever found congenial. 7. the flagellation. tabachetti has a chapel with this subject at varallo, and the saas group is obviously a descent with modification from his work there. the figure of christ is so like the one at varallo that i think it must have been carved by tabachetti himself. the man with the hooked nose, who at varallo is stooping to bind his rods, is here upright: it was probably the intention to emphasize him in the succeeding scenes as well as this, in the same way as he has been emphasized at varallo, but his nose got pared down in the cutting of later scenes, and could not easily be added to. the man binding christ to the column at varallo is repeated (longo intervallo) here, and the whole work is one inspired by that at varallo, though no single figure except that of the christ is adhered to with any very great closeness. i think the nearer malefactor, with a goitre, and wearing a large black hat, is either an addition of the year 1709, or was done by the journeyman of the local sculptor who carved the greater number of the figures. the man stooping down to bind his rods can hardly be by the same hand as either of the two black-hatted malefactors, but it is impossible to speak with certainty. the general effect of the chapel is excellent, if we consider the material in which it is executed, and the rudeness of the audience to whom it addresses itself. 8. the crowning with thorns. here again the inspiration is derived from tabachetti's crowning with thorns at varallo. the christs in the two chapels are strikingly alike, and the general effect is that of a residuary impression left in the mind of one who had known the varallo flagellation exceedingly well. 9. sta. veronica. this and the next succeeding chapels are the most important of the series. tabachetti's journey to calvary at varallo is again the source from which the present work was taken, but, as i have already said, it has been modified in reproduction. mount calvary is still shown, as at varallo, towards the left-hand corner of the work, but at saas it is more towards the middle than at varallo, so that horsemen and soldiers may be seen coming up behind it--a stroke that deserves the name of genius none the less for the manifest imperfection with which it has been carried into execution. there are only three horses fully shown, and one partly shown. they are all of the heavy flemish type adopted by tabachetti at varallo. the man kicking the fallen christ and the goitred man (with the same teeth missing), who are so conspicuous in the varallo journey to calvary, reappear here, only the kicking man has much less nose than at varallo, probably because (as explained) the nose got whittled away and could not be whittled back again. i observe that the kind of lapelled tunic which tabachetti, and only tabachetti, adopts at varallo, is adopted for the centurion in this chapel, and indeed throughout the saas chapels this particular form of tunic is the most usual for a roman soldier. the work is still a very striking one, notwithstanding its translation into wood and the decay into which it has been allowed to fall; nor can it fail to impress the visitor who is familiar with this class of art as coming from a man of extraordinary dramatic power and command over the almost impossible art of composing many figures together effectively in all-round sculpture. whether all the figures are even now as tabachetti left them i cannot determine, but mr. selwyn has restored simon the cyrenian to the position in which he obviously ought to stand, and between us we have got the chapel into something more like order. 10. the crucifixion. this subject was treated at varallo not by tabachetti but by gaudenzio ferrari. it confirms therefore my opinion as to the designer of the saas chapels to find in them no trace of the varallo crucifixion, while the kind of tunic which at varallo is only found in chapels wherein tabachetti worked again appears here. the work is in a deplorable state of decay. mr. selwyn has greatly improved the arrangement of the figures, but even now they are not, i imagine, quite as tabachetti left them. the figure of christ is greatly better in technical execution than that of either of the two thieves; the folds of the drapery alone will show this even to an unpractised eye. i do not think there can be a doubt but that tabachetti cut this figure himself, as also those of the magdalene and st. john, who stand at the foot of the cross. the thieves are coarsely executed, with no very obvious distinction between the penitent and the impenitent one, except that there is a fiend painted on the ceiling over the impenitent thief. the one horse introduced into the composition is again of the heavy flemish type adopted by tabachetti at varallo. there is great difference in the care with which the folds on the several draperies have been cut, some being stiff and poor enough, while others are done very sufficiently. in spite of smallness of scale, ignoble material, disarrangement and decay, the work is still striking. 11. the resurrection. there being no chapel at varallo with any of the remaining subjects treated at saas, the sculptor has struck out a line for himself. the christ in the resurrection chapel is a carefully modelled figure, and if better painted might not be ineffective. three soldiers, one sleeping, alone remain. there were probably other figures that have been lost. the sleeping soldier is very pleasing. 12. the ascension is not remarkably interesting; the christ appears to be, but perhaps is not, a much more modern figure than the rest. 13. the descent of the holy ghost. some of the figures along the end wall are very good, and were, i should imagine, cut by tabachetti himself. those against the two side walls are not so well cut. 14. the assumption of the virgin mary. the two large cherubs here are obviously by a later hand, and the small ones are not good. the figure of the virgin herself is unexceptionable. there were doubtless once other figures of the apostles which have disappeared; of these a single st. peter (?), so hidden away in a corner near the window that it can only be seen with difficulty, is the sole survivor. 15. the coronation of the virgin is of later date, and has probably superseded an earlier work. it can hardly be by the designer of the other chapels of the series. perhaps tabachetti had to leave for crea before all the chapels at saas were finished. lastly, we have the larger chapel dedicated to st. mary, which crowns the series. here there is nothing of more than common artistic interest, unless we except the stone altar mentioned in ruppen's chronicle. this is of course classical in style, and is, i should think, very good. once more i must caution the reader against expecting to find highly finished gems of art in the chapels i have been describing. a wooden figure not more than two feet high clogged with many coats of paint can hardly claim to be taken very seriously, and even those few that were cut by tabachetti himself were not meant to have attention concentrated on themselves alone. as mere wood-carving the saas-fee chapels will not stand comparison, for example, with the triptych of unknown authorship in the church of st. anne at gliss, close to brieg. but, in the first place, the work at gliss is worthy of holbein himself; i know no wood-carving that can so rivet the attention; moreover it is coloured with water-colour and not oil, so that it is tinted, not painted; and, in the second place, the gliss triptych belongs to a date (1519) when artists held neither time nor impressionism as objects, and hence, though greatly better than the saas-fee chapels as regards a certain japanese curiousness of finish and naivete of literal transcription, it cannot even enter the lists with the saas work as regards elan and dramatic effectiveness. the difference between the two classes of work is much that between, say, john van eyck or memling and rubens or rembrandt, or, again, between giovanni bellini and tintoretto; the aims of the one class of work are incompatible with those of the other. moreover, in the gliss triptych the intention of the designer is carried out (whether by himself or no) with admirable skill; whereas at saas the wisdom of the workman is rather of oberammergau than of the egyptians, and the voice of the poet is not a little drowned in that of his mouthpiece. if, however, the reader will bear in mind these somewhat obvious considerations, and will also remember the pathetic circumstances under which the chapels were designed--for tabachetti when he reached saas was no doubt shattered in body and mind by his four years' imprisonment--he will probably be not less attracted to them than i observed were many of the visitors both at saas-grund and saas-fee with whom i had the pleasure of examining them. i will now run briefly through the other principal works in the neighbourhood to which i think the reader would be glad to have his attention directed. at saas-fee itself the main altar-piece is without interest, as also one with a figure of st. sebastian. the virgin and child above the remaining altar are, so far as i remember them, very good, and greatly superior to the smaller figures of the same altar-piece. at almagel, an hour's walk or so above saas-grund--a village, the name of which, like those of the alphubel, the monte moro, and more than one other neighbouring site, is supposed to be of saracenic origin--the main altar-piece represents a female saint with folded arms being beheaded by a vigorous man to the left. these two figures are very good. there are two somewhat inferior elders to the right, and the composition is crowned by the assumption of the virgin. i like the work, but have no idea who did it. two bishops flanking the composition are not so good. there are two other altars in the church: the right-hand one has some pleasing figures, not so the left-hand. in st. joseph's chapel, on the mule-road between saas-grund and saas-fee, the st. joseph and the two children are rather nice. in the churches and chapels which i looked into between saas and stalden, i saw many florid extravagant altar-pieces, but nothing that impressed me favourably. in the parish church at saas-grund there are two altar-pieces which deserve attention. in the one over the main altar the arrangement of the last supper in a deep recess half-way up the composition is very pleasing and effective; in that above the right-hand altar of the two that stand in the body of the church there are a number of round lunettes, about eight inches in diameter, each containing a small but spirited group of wooden figures. i have lost my notes on these altar-pieces and can only remember that the main one has been restored, and now belongs to two different dates, the earlier date being, i should imagine, about 1670. a similar treatment of the last supper may be found near brieg in the church of naters, and no doubt the two altar-pieces are by the same man. there are, by the way, two very ambitious altars on either side the main arch leading to the chancel in the church at naters, of which the one on the south side contains obvious reminiscences of gaudenzio ferrari's sta. maria frescoes at varallo; but none of the four altar-pieces in the two transepts tempted me to give them much attention. as regards the smaller altar-piece at saas-grund, analogous work may be found at cravagliana, half-way between varallo and fobello, but this last has suffered through the inveterate habit which italians have of showing their hatred towards the enemies of christ by mutilating the figures that represent them. whether the saas work is by a valsesian artist who came over to switzerland, or whether the cravagliana work is by a swiss who had come to italy, i cannot say without further consideration and closer examination than i have been able to give. the altar-pieces of mairengo, chiggiogna, and, i am told, lavertezzo, all in the canton ticino, are by a swiss or german artist who has migrated southward; but the reverse migration was equally common. being in the neighbourhood, and wishing to assure myself whether the sculptor of the saas-fee chapels had or had not come lower down the valley, i examined every church and village which i could hear of as containing anything that might throw light on this point. i was thus led to vispertimenen, a village some three hours above either visp or stalden. it stands very high, and is an almost untouched example of a medieval village. the altar-piece of the main church is even more floridly ambitious in its abundance of carving and gilding than the many other ambitious altar-pieces with which the canton valais abounds. the apostles are receiving the holy ghost on the first storey of the composition, and they certainly are receiving it with an overjoyed alacrity and hilarious ecstasy of allegria spirituale which it would not be easy to surpass. above the village, reaching almost to the limits beyond which there is no cultivation, there stands a series of chapels like those i have been describing at saas-fee, only much larger and more ambitious. they are twelve in number, including the church that crowns the series. the figures they contain are of wood (so i was assured, but i did not go inside the chapels): they are life-size, and in some chapels there are as many as a dozen figures. i should think they belonged to the later half of the eighteenth century, and here, one would say, sculpture touches the ground; at least, it is not easy to see how cheap exaggeration can sink an art more deeply. the only things that at all pleased me were a smiling donkey and an ecstatic cow in the nativity chapel. those who are not allured by the prospect of seeing perhaps the very worst that can be done in its own line, need not be at the pains of climbing up to vispertimenen. those, on the other hand, who may find this sufficient inducement will not be disappointed, and they will enjoy magnificent views of the weisshorn and the mountains near the dom. i have already referred to the triptych at gliss. this is figured in wolf's work on chamonix and the canton valais, but a larger and clearer reproduction of such an extraordinary work is greatly to be desired. the small wooden statues above the triptych, as also those above its modern companion in the south transept, are not less admirable than the triptych itself. i know of no other like work in wood, and have no clue whatever as to who the author can have been beyond the fact that the work is purely german and eminently holbeinesque in character. i was told of some chapels at rarogne, five or six miles lower down the valley than visp. i examined them, and found they had been stripped of their figures. the few that remained satisfied me that we have had no loss. above brieg there are two other like series of chapels. i examined the higher and more promising of the two, but found not one single figure left. i was told by my driver that the other series, close to the pont napoleon on the simplon road, had been also stripped of its figures, and, there being a heavy storm at the time, have taken his word for it that this was so. thought and language {209} three well-known writers, professor max muller, professor mivart, and mr. alfred russel wallace, have lately maintained that though the theory of descent with modification accounts for the development of all vegetable life, and of all animals lower than man, yet that man cannot--not at least in respect of the whole of his nature--be held to have descended from any animal lower than himself, inasmuch as none lower than man possesses even the germs of language. reason, it is contended--more especially by professor max muller in his science of thought, to which i propose confining our attention this evening--is so inseparably connected with language, that the two are in point of fact identical; hence it is argued that, as the lower animals have no germs of language, they can have no germs of reason, and the inference is drawn that man cannot be conceived as having derived his own reasoning powers and command of language through descent from beings in which no germ of either can be found. the relations therefore between thought and language, interesting in themselves, acquire additional importance from the fact of their having become the battle-ground between those who say that the theory of descent breaks down with man, and those who maintain that we are descended from some apelike ancestor long since extinct. the contention of those who refuse to admit man unreservedly into the scheme of evolution is comparatively recent. the great propounders of evolution, buffon, erasmus darwin and lamarck--not to mention a score of others who wrote at the close of the last and early part of this present century--had no qualms about admitting man into their system. they have been followed in this respect by the late mr. charles darwin, and by the greatly more influential part of our modern biologists, who hold that whatever loss of dignity we may incur through being proved to be of humble origin, is compensated by the credit we may claim for having advanced ourselves to such a high pitch of civilization; this bids us expect still further progress, and glorifies our descendants more than it abases our ancestors. but to whichever view we may incline on sentimental grounds the fact remains that, while charles darwin declared language to form no impassable barrier between man and the lower animals, professor max muller calls it the rubicon which no brute dare cross, and deduces hence the conclusion that man cannot have descended from an unknown but certainly speechless ape. it may perhaps be expected that i should begin a lecture on the relations between thought and language with some definition of both these things; but thought, as sir william grove said of motion, is a phenomenon "so obvious to simple apprehension that to define it would make it more obscure." {210} definitions are useful where things are new to us, but they are superfluous about those that are already familiar, and mischievous, so far as they are possible at all, in respect of all those things that enter so profoundly and intimately into our being that in them we must either live or bear no life. to vivisect the more vital processes of thought is to suspend, if not to destroy them; for thought can think about everything more healthily and easily than about itself. it is like its instrument the brain, which knows nothing of any injuries inflicted upon itself. as regards what is new to us, a definition will sometimes dilute a difficulty, and help us to swallow that which might choke us undiluted; but to define when we have once well swallowed is to unsettle, rather than settle, our digestion. definitions, again, are like steps cut in a steep slope of ice, or shells thrown on to a greasy pavement; they give us foothold, and enable us to advance, but when we are at our journey's end we want them no longer. again, they are useful as mental fluxes, and as helping us to fuse new ideas with our older ones. they present us with some tags and ends of ideas that we have already mastered, on to which we can hitch our new ones; but to multiply them in respect of such a matter as thought, is like scratching the bite of a gnat; the more we scratch the more we want to scratch; the more we define the more we shall have to go on defining the words we have used in our definitions, and shall end by setting up a serious mental raw in the place of a small uneasiness that was after all quite endurable. we know too well what thought is, to be able to know that we know it, and i am persuaded there is no one in this room but understands what is meant by thought and thinking well enough for all the purposes of this discussion. whoever does not know this without words will not learn it for all the words and definitions that are laid before him. the more, indeed, he hears, the more confused he will become. i shall, therefore, merely premise that i use the word "thought" in the same sense as that in which it is generally used by people who say that they think this or that. at any rate, it will be enough if i take professor max muller's own definition, and say that its essence consists in a bringing together of mental images and ideas with deductions therefrom, and with a corresponding power of detaching them from one another. hobbes, the professor tells us, maintained this long ago, when he said that all our thinking consists of addition and subtraction--that is to say, in bringing ideas together, and in detaching them from one another. turning from thought to language, we observe that the word is derived from the french langue, or tongue. strictly, therefore, it means tonguage. this, however, takes account of but a very small part of the ideas that underlie the word. it does, indeed, seize a familiar and important detail of everyday speech, though it may be doubted whether the tongue has more to do with speaking than lips, teeth and throat have, but it makes no attempt at grasping and expressing the essential characteristic of speech. anything done with the tongue, even though it involve no speaking at all, is tonguage; eating oranges is as much tonguage as speech is. the word, therefore, though it tells us in part how speech is effected, reveals nothing of that ulterior meaning which is nevertheless inseparable from any right use of the words either "speech" or "language." it presents us with what is indeed a very frequent adjunct of conversation, but the use of written characters, or the finger-speech of deaf mutes, is enough to show that the word "language" omits all reference to the most essential characteristics of the idea, which in practice it nevertheless very sufficiently presents to us. i hope presently to make it clear to you how and why it should do so. the word is incomplete in the first place, because it omits all reference to the ideas which words, speech or language are intended to convey, and there can be no true word without its actually or potentially conveying an idea. secondly, it makes no allusion to the person or persons to whom the ideas are to be conveyed. language is not language unless it not only expresses fairly definite and coherent ideas, but unless it also conveys these ideas to some other living intelligent being, either man or brute, that can understand them. we may speak to a dog or horse, but not to a stone. if we make pretence of doing so we are in reality only talking to ourselves. the person or animal spoken to is half the battle--a half, moreover, which is essential to there being any battle at all. it takes two people to say a thing--a sayee as well as a sayer. the one is as essential to any true saying as the other. a. may have spoken, but if b. has not heard there has been nothing said, and he must speak again. true, the belief on a.'s part that he had a bona fide sayee in b., saves his speech qua him, but it has been barren and left no fertile issue. it has failed to fulfil the conditions of true speech, which involve not only that a. should speak, but also that b. should hear. true, again, we often speak of loose, incoherent, indefinite language; but by doing so we imply, and rightly, that we are calling that language which is not true language at all. people, again, sometimes talk to themselves without intending that any other person should hear them, but this is not well done, and does harm to those who practise it. it is abnormal, whereas our concern is with normal and essential characteristics; we may, therefore, neglect both delirious babblings, and the cases in which a person is regarding him or herself, as it were, from outside, and treating himself as though he were someone else. inquiring, then, what are the essentials, the presence of which constitutes language, while their absence negatives it altogether, we find that professor max muller restricts them to the use of grammatical articulate words that we can write or speak, and denies that anything can be called language unless it can be written or spoken in articulate words and sentences. he also denies that we can think at all unless we do so in words; that is to say, in sentences with verbs and nouns. indeed, he goes so far as to say upon his title-page that there can be no reason--which i imagine comes to much the same thing as thought--without language, and no language without reason. against the assertion that there can be no true language without reason i have nothing to say. but when the professor says that there can be no reason, or thought, without language, his opponents contend, as it seems to me, with greater force, that thought, though infinitely aided, extended and rendered definite through the invention of words, nevertheless existed so fully as to deserve no other name thousands, if not millions of years before words had entered into it at all. words, they say, are a comparatively recent invention, for the fuller expression of something that was already in existence. children, they urge, are often evidently thinking and reasoning, though they can neither think nor speak in words. if you ask me to define reason, i answer as before that this can no more be done than thought, truth or motion can be defined. who has answered the question, "what is truth?" man cannot see god and live. we cannot go so far back upon ourselves as to undermine our own foundations; if we try to do so we topple over, and lose that very reason about which we vainly try to reason. if we let the foundations be, we know well enough that they are there, and we can build upon them in all security. we cannot, then, define reason nor crib, cabin and confine it within a thus-far-shalt-thou-go-and-no-further. who can define heat or cold, or night or day? yet, so long as we hold fast by current consent, our chances of error for want of better definition are so small that no sensible person will consider them. in like manner, if we hold by current consent or common sense, which is the same thing, about reason, we shall not find the want of an academic definition hinder us from a reasonable conclusion. what nurse or mother will doubt that her infant child can reason within the limits of its own experience, long before it can formulate its reason in articulately worded thought? if the development of any given animal is, as our opponents themselves admit, an epitome of the history of its whole anterior development, surely the fact that speech is an accomplishment acquired after birth so artificially that children who have gone wild in the woods lose it if they have ever learned it, points to the conclusion that man's ancestors only learned to express themselves in articulate language at a comparatively recent period. granted that they learn to think and reason continually the more and more fully for having done so, will common sense permit us to suppose that they could neither think nor reason at all till they could convey their ideas in words? i will return later to the reason of the lower animals, but will now deal with the question what it is that constitutes language in the most comprehensive sense that can be properly attached to it. i have said already that language to be language at all must not only convey fairly definite coherent ideas, but must also convey them to another living being. whenever two living beings have conveyed and received ideas, there has been language, whether looks or gestures or words spoken or written have been the vehicle by means of which the ideas have travelled. some ideas crawl, some run, some fly; and in this case words are the wings they fly with, but they are only the wings of thought or of ideas, they are not the thought or ideas themselves, nor yet, as professor max muller would have it, inseparably connected with them. last summer i was at an inn in sicily, where there was a deaf and dumb waiter; he had been born so, and could neither write nor read. what had he to do with words or words with him? are we to say, then, that this most active, amiable and intelligent fellow could neither think nor reason? one day i had had my dinner and had left the hotel. a friend came in, and the waiter saw him look for me in the place i generally occupied. he instantly came up to my friend and moved his two forefingers in a way that suggested two people going about together, this meant "your friend"; he then moved his forefingers horizontally across his eyes, this meant, "who wears divided spectacles"; he made two fierce marks over the sockets of his eyes, this meant, "with the heavy eyebrows"; he pulled his chin, and then touched his white shirt, to say that my beard was white. having thus identified me as a friend of the person he was speaking to, and as having a white beard, heavy eyebrows, and wearing divided spectacles, he made a munching movement with his jaws to say that i had had my dinner; and finally, by making two fingers imitate walking on the table, he explained that i had gone away. my friend, however, wanted to know how long i had been gone, so he pulled out his watch and looked inquiringly. the man at once slapped himself on the back, and held up the five fingers of one hand, to say it was five minutes ago. all this was done as rapidly as though it had been said in words; and my friend, who knew the man well, understood without a moment's hesitation. are we to say that this man had no thought, nor reason, nor language, merely because he had not a single word of any kind in his head, which i am assured he had not; for, as i have said, he could not speak with his fingers? is it possible to deny that a dialogue-an intelligent conversation--had passed between the two men? and if conversation, then surely it is technical and pedantic to deny that all the essential elements of language were present. the signs and tokens used by this poor fellow were as rude an instrument of expression, in comparison with ordinary language, as going on one's hands and knees is in comparison with walking, or as walking compared with going by train; but it is as great an abuse of words to limit the word "language" to mere words written or spoken, as it would be to limit the idea of a locomotive to a railway engine. this may indeed pass in ordinary conversation, where so much must be suppressed if talk is to be got through at all, but it is intolerable when we are inquiring about the relations between thought and words. to do so is to let words become as it were the masters of thought, on the ground that the fact of their being only its servants and appendages is so obvious that it is generally allowed to go without saying. if all that professor max muller means to say is, that no animal but man commands an articulate language, with verbs and nouns, or is ever likely to command one (and i question whether in reality he means much more than this), no one will differ from him. no dog or elephant has one word for bread, another for meat, and another for water. yet, when we watch a cat or dog dreaming, as they often evidently do, can we doubt that the dream is accompanied by a mental image of the thing that is dreamed of, much like what we experience in dreams ourselves, and much doubtless like the mental images which must have passed through the mind of my deaf and dumb waiter? if they have mental images in sleep, can we doubt that waking, also, they picture things before their mind's eyes, and see them much as we do--too vaguely indeed to admit of our thinking that we actually see the objects themselves, but definitely enough for us to be able to recognize the idea or object of which we are thinking, and to connect it with any other idea, object, or sign that we may think appropriate? here we have touched on the second essential element of language. we laid it down, that its essence lay in the communication of an idea from one intelligent being to another; but no ideas can be communicated at all except by the aid of conventions to which both parties have agreed to attach an identical meaning. the agreement may be very informal, and may pass so unconsciously from one generation to another that its existence can only be recognized by the aid of much introspection, but it will be always there. a sayer, a sayee, and a convention, no matter what, agreed upon between them as inseparably attached to the idea which it is intended to convey--these comprise all the essentials of language. where these are present there is language; where any of them are wanting there is no language. it is not necessary for the sayee to be able to speak and become a sayer. if he comprehends the sayer-that is to say, if he attaches the same meaning to a certain symbol as the sayer does--if he is a party to the bargain whereby it is agreed upon by both that any given symbol shall be attached invariably to a certain idea, so that in virtue of the principle of associated ideas the symbol shall never be present without immediately carrying the idea along with it, then all the essentials of language are complied with, and there has been true speech though never a word was spoken. the lower animals, therefore, many of them, possess a part of our own language, though they cannot speak it, and hence do not possess it so fully as we do. they cannot say "bread," "meat," or "water," but there are many that readily learn what ideas they ought to attach to these symbols when they are presented to them. it is idle to say that a cat does not know what the cat's-meat man means when he says "meat." the cat knows just as well, neither better nor worse than the cat's-meat man does, and a great deal better than i myself understand much that is said by some very clever people at oxford or cambridge. there is more true employment of language, more bona fide currency of speech, between a sayer and a sayee who understand each other, though neither of them can speak a word, than between a sayer who can speak with the tongues of men and of angels without being clear about his own meaning, and a sayee who can himself utter the same words, but who is only in imperfect agreement with the sayer as to the ideas which the words or symbols that he utters are intended to convey. the nature of the symbols counts for nothing; the gist of the matter is in the perfect harmony between sayer and sayee as to the significance that is to be associated with them. professor max muller admits that we share with the lower animals what he calls an emotional language, and continues that we may call their interjections and imitations language if we like, as we speak of the language of the eyes or the eloquence of mute nature, but he warns us against mistaking metaphor for fact. it is indeed mere metaphor to talk of the eloquence of mute nature, or the language of winds and waves. there is no intercommunion of mind with mind by means of a covenanted symbol; but it is only an apparent, not a real, metaphor to say that two pairs of eyes have spoken when they have signalled to one another something which they both understand. a schoolboy at home for the holidays wants another plate of pudding, and does not like to apply officially for more. he catches the servant's eye and looks at the pudding; the servant understands, takes his plate without a word, and gets him some. is it metaphor to say that the boy asked the servant to do this, or is it not rather pedantry to insist on the letter of a bond and deny its spirit, by denying that language passed, on the ground that the symbols covenanted upon and assented to by both were uttered and received by eyes and not by mouth and ears? when the lady drank to the gentleman only with her eyes, and he pledged with his, was there no conversation because there was neither noun nor verb? eyes are verbs, and glasses of wine are good nouns enough as between those who understand one another. whether the ideas underlying them are expressed and conveyed by eyeage or by tonguage is a detail that matters nothing. but everything we say is metaphorical if we choose to be captious. scratch the simplest expressions, and you will find the metaphor. written words are handage, inkage and paperage; it is only by metaphor, or substitution and transposition of ideas, that we can call them language. they are indeed potential language, and the symbols employed presuppose nouns, verbs, and the other parts of speech; but for the most part it is in what we read between the lines that the profounder meaning of any letter is conveyed. there are words unwritten and untranslatable into any nouns that are nevertheless felt as above, about and underneath the gross material symbols that lie scrawled upon the paper; and the deeper the feeling with which anything is written the more pregnant will it be of meaning which can be conveyed securely enough, but which loses rather than gains if it is squeezed into a sentence, and limited by the parts of speech. the language is not in the words but in the heart-to-heartness of the thing, which is helped by words, but is nearer and farther than they. a correspondent wrote to me once, many years ago, "if i could think to you without words you would understand me better." but surely in this he was thinking to me, and without words, and i did understand him better. . . . so it is not by the words that i am too presumptuously venturing to speak tonight that your opinions will be formed or modified. they will be formed or modified, if either, by something that you will feel, but which i have not spoken, to the full as much as by anything that i have actually uttered. you may say that this borders on mysticism. perhaps it does, but there really is some mysticism in nature. to return, however, to terra firma. i believe i am right in saying that the essence of language lies in the intentional conveyance of ideas from one living being to another through the instrumentality of arbitrary tokens or symbols agreed upon and understood by both as being associated with the particular ideas in question. the nature of the symbol chosen is a matter of indifference; it may be anything that appeals to human senses, and is not too hot or too heavy; the essence of the matter lies in a mutual covenant that whatever it is shall stand invariably for the same thing, or nearly so. we shall see this more easily if we observe the differences between written and spoken language. the written word "stone," and the spoken word, are each of them symbols arrived at in the first instance arbitrarily. they are neither of them more like the other than they are to the idea of a stone which rises before our minds, when we either see or hear the word, or than this idea again is like the actual stone itself, but nevertheless the spoken symbol and the written one each alike convey with certainty the combination of ideas to which we have agreed to attach them. the written symbol is formed with the hand, appeals to the eye, leaves a material trace as long as paper and ink last, can travel as far as paper and ink can travel, and can be imprinted on eye after eye practically ad infinitum both as regards time and space. the spoken symbol is formed by means of various organs in or about the mouth, appeals to the ear, not the eye, perishes instantly without material trace, and if it lives at all does so only in the minds of those who heard it. the range of its action is no wider than that within which a voice can be heard; and every time a fresh impression is wanted the type must be set up anew. the written symbol extends infinitely, as regards time and space, the range within which one mind can communicate with another; it gives the writer's mind a life limited by the duration of ink, paper and readers, as against that of his flesh and blood body. on the other hand, it takes longer to learn the rules so as to be able to apply them with ease and security, and even then they cannot be applied so quickly and easily as those attaching to spoken symbols. moreover, the spoken symbols admit of a hundred quick and subtle adjuncts by way of action, tone and expression, so that no one will use written symbols unless either for the special advantages of permanence and travelling power, or because he is incapacitated from using spoken ones. this, however, is hardly to the point; the point is that these two conventional combinations of symbols, that are as unlike one another as the hallelujah chorus is to st. paul's cathedral, are the one as much language as the other; and we therefore inquire what this very patent fact reveals to us about the more essential characteristics of language itself. what is the common bond that unites these two classes of symbols that seem at first sight to have nothing in common, and makes the one raise the idea of language in our minds as readily as the other? the bond lies in the fact that both are a set of conventional tokens or symbols, agreed upon between the parties to whom they appeal as being attached invariably to the same ideas, and because they are being made as a means of communion between one mind and another--for a memorandum made for a person's own later use is nothing but a communication from an earlier mind to a later and modified one; it is therefore in reality a communication from one mind to another as much as though it had been addressed to another person. we see, therefore, that the nature of the outward and visible sign to which the inward and spiritual idea of language is attached does not matter. it may be the firing of a gun; it may be an old semaphore telegraph; it may be the movements of a needle; a look, a gesture, the breaking of a twig by an indian to tell someone that he has passed that way: a twig broken designedly with this end in view is a letter addressed to whomsoever it may concern, as much as though it had been written out in full on bark or paper. it does not matter one straw what it is, provided it is agreed upon in concert, and stuck to. just as the lowest forms of life nevertheless present us with all the essential characteristics of livingness, and are as much alive in their own humble way as the most highly developed organisms, so the rudest intentional and effectual communication between two minds through the instrumentality of a concerted symbol is as much language as the most finished oratory of mr. gladstone. i demur therefore to the assertion that the lower animals have no language, inasmuch as they cannot themselves articulate a grammatical sentence. i do not indeed pretend that when the cat calls upon the tiles it uses what it consciously and introspectively recognizes as language; it says what it has to say without introspection, and in the ordinary course of business, as one of the common forms of courtship. it no more knows that it has been using language than m. jourdain knew he had been speaking prose, but m. jourdain's knowing or not knowing was neither here nor there. anything which can be made to hitch on invariably to a definite idea that can carry some distance--say an inch at the least, and which can be repeated at pleasure, can be pressed into the service of language. mrs. bentley, wife of the famous dr. bentley of trinity college, cambridge, used to send her snuff-box to the college buttery when she wanted beer, instead of a written order. if the snuff-box came the beer was sent, but if there was no snuff-box there was no beer. wherein did the snuff-box differ more from a written order, than a written order differs from a spoken one? the snuff-box was for the time being language. it sounds strange to say that one might take a pinch of snuff out of a sentence, but if the servant had helped him or herself to a pinch while carrying it to the buttery this is what would have been done; for if a snuff-box can say "send me a quart of beer," so efficiently that the beer is sent, it is impossible to say that it is not a bona fide sentence. as for the recipient of the message, the butler did not probably translate the snuff-box into articulate nouns and verbs; as soon as he saw it he just went down into the cellar and drew the beer, and if he thought at all, it was probably about something else. yet he must have been thinking without words, or he would have drawn too much beer or too little, or have spilt it in the bringing it up, and we may be sure that he did none of these things. you will, of course, observe that if mrs. bentley had sent the snuff-box to the buttery of st. john's college instead of trinity, it would not have been language, for there would have been no covenant between sayer and sayee as to what the symbol should represent, there would have been no previously established association of ideas in the mind of the butler of st. john's between beer and snuff-box; the connection was artificial, arbitrary, and by no means one of those in respect of which an impromptu bargain might be proposed by the very symbol itself, and assented to without previous formality by the person to whom it was presented. more briefly, the butler of st. john's would not have been able to understand and read it aright. it would have been a dead letter to him--a snuff-box and not a letter; whereas to the butler of trinity it was a letter and not a snuff-box. you will also note that it was only at the moment when he was looking at it and accepting it as a message that it flashed forth from snuff-box-hood into the light and life of living utterance. as soon as it had kindled the butler into sending a single quart of beer, its force was spent until mrs. bentley threw her soul into it again and charged it anew by wanting more beer, and sending it down accordingly. again, take the ring which the earl of essex sent to queen elizabeth, but which the queen did not receive. this was intended as a sentence, but failed to become effectual language because the sensible material symbol never reached those sentient organs which it was intended to affect. a book, again, however full of excellent words it may be, is not language when it is merely standing on a bookshelf. it speaks to no one, unless when being actually read, or quoted from by an act of memory. it is potential language as a lucifer-match is potential fire, but it is no more language till it is in contact with a recipient mind, than a match is fire till it is struck, and is being consumed. a piece of music, again, without any words at all, or a song with words that have nothing in the world to do with the ideas which it is nevertheless made to convey, is very often effectual language. much lying, and all irony depends on tampering with covenanted symbols, and making those that are usually associated with one set of ideas convey by a sleight of mind others of a different nature. that is why irony is intolerably fatiguing unless very sparingly used. take the song which blondel sang under the window of king richard's prison. there was not one syllable in it to say that blondel was there, and was going to help the king to get out of prison. it was about some silly love affair, but it was a letter all the same, and the king made language of what would otherwise have been no language, by guessing the meaning, that is to say, by perceiving that he was expected to enter then and there into a new covenant as to the meaning of the symbols that were presented to him, understanding what this covenant was to be, and acquiescing in it. on the other hand, no ingenuity can torture "language" into being a fit word to use in connection with either sounds or any other symbols that have not been intended to convey a meaning, or again in connection with either sounds or symbols in respect of which there has been no covenant between sayer and sayee. when we hear people speaking a foreign language--we will say welsh--we feel that though they are no doubt using what is very good language as between themselves, there is no language whatever as far as we are concerned. we call it lingo, not language. the chinese letters on a tea-chest might as well not be there, for all that they say to us, though the chinese find them very much to the purpose. they are a covenant to which we have been no parties--to which our intelligence has affixed no signature. we have already seen that it is in virtue of such an understood covenant that symbols so unlike one another as the written word "stone" and the spoken word alike at once raise the idea of a stone in our minds. see how the same holds good as regards the different languages that pass current in different nations. the letters p, i, e, r, r, e convey the idea of a stone to a frenchman as readily as s, t, o, n, e do to ourselves. and why? because that is the covenant that has been struck between those who speak and those who are spoken to. our "stone" conveys no idea to a frenchman, nor his "pierre" to us, unless we have done what is commonly called acquiring one another's language. to acquire a foreign language is only to learn and adhere to the covenants in respect of symbols which the nation in question has adopted and adheres to. till we have done this we neither of us know the rules, so to speak, of the game that the other is playing, and cannot, therefore, play together; but the convention being once known and consented to, it does not matter whether we raise the idea of a stone by the words "lapis," or by "lithos," "pietra," "pierre," "stein," "stane" or "stone"; we may choose what symbols written or spoken we choose, and one set, unless they are of unwieldy length, will do as well as another, if we can get other people to choose the same and stick to them; it is the accepting and sticking to them that matters, not the symbols. the whole power of spoken language is vested in the invariableness with which certain symbols are associated with certain ideas. if we are strict in always connecting the same symbols with the same ideas, we speak well, keep our meaning clear to ourselves, and convey it readily and accurately to anyone who is also fairly strict. if, on the other hand, we use the same combination of symbols for one thing one day and for another the next, we abuse our symbols instead of using them, and those who indulge in slovenly habits in this respect ere long lose the power alike of thinking and of expressing themselves correctly. the symbols, however, in the first instance, may be anything in the wide world that we have a fancy for. they have no more to do with the ideas they serve to convey than money has with the things that it serves to buy. the principle of association, as everyone knows, involves that whenever two things have been associated sufficiently together, the suggestion of one of them to the mind shall immediately raise a suggestion of the other. it is in virtue of this principle that language, as we so call it, exists at all, for the essence of language consists, as i have said perhaps already too often, in the fixity with which certain ideas are invariably connected with certain symbols. but this being so, it is hard to see how we can deny that the lower animals possess the germs of a highly rude and unspecialized, but still true language, unless we also deny that they have any ideas at all; and this i gather is what professor max muller in a quiet way rather wishes to do. thus he says, "it is easy enough to show that animals communicate, but this is a fact which has never been doubted. dogs who growl and bark leave no doubt in the minds of other dogs or cats, or even of man, of what they mean, but growling and barking are not language, nor do they even contain the elements of language." {230} i observe the professor says that animals communicate without saying what it is that they communicate. i believe this to have been because if he said that the lower animals communicate their ideas, this would be to admit that they have ideas; if so, and if, as they present every appearance of doing, they can remember, reflect upon, modify these ideas according to modified surroundings, and interchange them with one another, how is it possible to deny them the germs of thought, language, and reason--not to say a good deal more than the germs? it seems to me that not knowing what else to say that animals communicated if it was not ideas, and not knowing what mess he might not get into if he admitted that they had ideas at all, he thought it safer to omit his accusative case altogether. that growling and barking cannot be called a very highly specialized language goes without saying; they are, however, so much diversified in character, according to circumstances, that they place a considerable number of symbols at an animal's command, and he invariably attaches the same symbol to the same idea. a cat never purrs when she is angry, nor spits when she is pleased. when she rubs her head against anyone affectionately it is her symbol for saying that she is very fond of him, and she expects, and usually finds that it will be understood. if she sees her mistress raise her hand as though to pretend to strike her, she knows that it is the symbol her mistress invariably attaches to the idea of sending her away, and as such she accepts it. granted that the symbols in use among the lower animals are fewer and less highly differentiated than in the case of any known human language, and therefore that animal language is incomparably less subtle and less capable of expressing delicate shades of meaning than our own, these differences are nevertheless only those that exist between highly developed and inchoate language; they do not involve those that distinguish language from no language. they are the differences between the undifferentiated protoplasm of the amoeba and our own complex organization; they are not the differences between life and no life. in animal language as much as in human there is a mind intentionally making use of a symbol accepted by another mind as invariably attached to a certain idea, in order to produce that idea in the mind which it is desired to affect--more briefly, there is a sayer, a sayee, and a covenanted symbol designedly applied. our own speech is vertebrated and articulated by means of nouns, verbs, and the rules of grammar. a dog's speech is invertebrate, but i do not see how it is possible to deny that it possesses all the essential elements of language. i have said nothing about professor r. l. garner's researches into the language of apes, because they have not yet been so far verified and accepted as to make it safe to rely upon them; but when he lays it down that all voluntary sounds are the products of thought, and that, if they convey a meaning to another, they perform the functions of human speech, he says what i believe will commend itself to any unsophisticated mind. i could have wished, however, that he had not limited himself to sounds, and should have preferred his saying what i doubt not he would readily accept--i mean, that all symbols or tokens of whatever kind, if voluntarily adopted as such, are the products of thought, and perform the functions of human speech; but i cannot too often remind you that nothing can be considered as fulfilling the conditions of language, except a voluntary application of a recognized token in order to convey a more or less definite meaning, with the intention doubtless of thus purchasing as it were some other desired meaning and consequent sensation. it is astonishing how closely in this respect money and words resemble one another. money indeed may be considered as the most universal and expressive of all languages. for gold and silver coins are no more money when not in the actual process of being voluntarily used in purchase, than words not so in use are language. pounds, shillings and pence are recognized covenanted tokens, the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual purchasing power, but till in actual use they are only potential money, as the symbols of language, whatever they may be, are only potential language till they are passing between two minds. it is the power and will to apply the symbols that alone gives life to money, and as long as these are in abeyance the money is in abeyance also; the coins may be safe in one's pocket, but they are as dead as a log till they begin to burn in it, and so are our words till they begin to burn within us. the real question, however, as to the substantial underlying identity between the language of the lower animals and our own, turns upon that other question whether or no, in spite of an immeasurable difference of degree, the thought and reason of man and of the lower animals is essentially the same. no one will expect a dog to master and express the varied ideas that are incessantly arising in connection with human affairs. he is a pauper as against a millionaire. to ask him to do so would be like giving a streetboy sixpence and telling him to go and buy himself a founder's share in the new river company. he would not even know what was meant, and even if he did it would take several millions of sixpences to buy one. it is astonishing what a clever workman will do with very modest tools, or again how far a thrifty housewife will make a very small sum of money go, or again in like manner how many ideas an intelligent brute can receive and convey with its very limited vocabulary; but no one will pretend that a dog's intelligence can ever reach the level of a man's. what we do maintain is that, within its own limited range, it is of the same essential character as our own, and that though a dog's ideas in respect of human affairs are both vague and narrow, yet in respect of canine affairs they are precise enough and extensive enough to deserve no other name than thought or reason. we hold moreover that they communicate their ideas in essentially the same manner as we do--that is to say, by the instrumentality of a code of symbols attached to certain states of mind and material objects, in the first instance arbitrarily, but so persistently, that the presentation of the symbol immediately carries with it the idea which it is intended to convey. animals can thus receive and impart ideas on all that most concerns them. as my great namesake said some two hundred years ago, they know "what's what, and that's as high as metaphysic wit can fly." and they not only know what's what themselves, but can impart to one another any new what's-whatness that they may have acquired, for they are notoriously able to instruct and correct one another. against this professor max muller contends that we can know nothing of what goes on in the mind of any lower animal, inasmuch as we are not lower animals ourselves. "we can imagine anything we like about what passes in the mind of an animal," he writes, "we can know absolutely nothing." {234} it is something to have it in evidence that he conceives animals as having a mind at all, but it is not easy to see how they can be supposed to have a mind, without being able to acquire ideas, and having acquired, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them. surely the mistake of requiring too much evidence is hardly less great than that of being contented with too little. we, too, are animals, and can no more refuse to infer reason from certain visible actions in their case than we can in our own. if professor max muller's plea were allowed, we should have to deny our right to infer confidently what passes in the mind of anyone not ourselves, inasmuch as we are not that person. we never, indeed, can obtain irrefragable certainty about this or any other matter, but we can be sure enough in many cases to warrant our staking all that is most precious to us on the soundness of our opinion. moreover, if the professor denies our right to infer that animals reason, on the ground that we are not animals enough ourselves to be able to form an opinion, with what right does he infer so confidently himself that they do not reason? and how, if they present every one of those appearances which we are accustomed to connect with the communication of an idea from one mind to another, can we deny that they have a language of their own, though it is one which in most cases we can neither speak nor understand? how can we say that a sentinel rook, when it sees a man with a gun and warns the other rooks by a concerted note which they all show that they understand by immediately taking flight, should not be credited both with reason and the germs of language? after all, a professor, whether of philology, psychology, biology, or any other ology, is hardly the kind of person to whom we should appeal on such an elementary question as that of animal intelligence and language. we might as well ask a botanist to tell us whether grass grows, or a meteorologist to tell us if it has left off raining. if it is necessary to appeal to anyone, i should prefer the opinion of an intelligent gamekeeper to that of any professor, however learned. the keepers, again, at the zoological gardens, have exceptional opportunities for studying the minds of animals-modified, indeed, by captivity, but still minds of animals. grooms, again, and dog-fanciers, are to the full as able to form an intelligent opinion on the reason and language of animals as any university professor, and so are cat's-meat men. i have repeatedly asked gamekeepers and keepers at the zoological gardens whether animals could reason and converse with one another, and have always found myself regarded somewhat contemptuously for having even asked the question. i once said to a friend, in the hearing of a keeper at the zoological gardens, that the penguin was very stupid. the man was furious, and jumped upon me at once. "he's not stupid at all," said he; "he's very intelligent." who has not seen a cat, when it wishes to go out, raise its fore paws on to the handle of the door, or as near as it can get, and look round, evidently asking someone to turn it for her? is it reasonable to deny that a reasoning process is going on in the cat's mind, whereby she connects her wish with the steps necessary for its fulfilment, and also with certain invariable symbols which she knows her master or mistress will interpret? once, in company with a friend, i watched a cat playing with a house-fly in the window of a ground-floor room. we were in the street, while the cat was inside. when we came up to the window she gave us one searching look, and, having satisfied herself that we had nothing for her, went on with her game. she knew all about the glass in the window, and was sure we could do nothing to molest her, so she treated us with absolute contempt, never even looking at us again. the game was this. she was to catch the fly and roll it round and round under her paw along the window-sill, but so gently as not to injure it nor prevent it from being able to fly again when she had done rolling it. it was very early spring, and flies were scarce, in fact there was not another in the whole window. she knew that if she crippled this one, it would not be able to amuse her further, and that she would not readily get another instead, and she liked the feel of it under her paw. it was soft and living, and the quivering of its wings tickled the ball of her foot in a manner that she found particularly grateful; so she rolled it gently along the whole length of the window-sill. it then became the fly's turn. he was to get up and fly about in the window, so as to recover himself a little; then she was to catch him again, and roll him softly all along the window-sill, as she had done before. it was plain that the cat knew the rules of her game perfectly well, and enjoyed it keenly. it was equally plain that the fly could not make head or tail of what it was all about. if it had been able to do so it would have gone to play in the upper part of the window, where the cat could not reach it. perhaps it was always hoping to get through the glass, and escape that way; anyhow, it kept pretty much to the same pane, no matter how often it was rolled. at last, however, the fly, for some reason or another, did not reappear on the pane, and the cat began looking everywhere to find it. her annoyance when she failed to do so was extreme. it was not only that she had lost her fly, but that she could not conceive how she should have ever come to do so. presently she noted a small knot in the woodwork of the sill, and it flashed upon her that she had accidentally killed the fly, and that this was its dead body. she tried to move it gently with her paw, but it was no use, and for the time she satisfied herself that the knot and the fly had nothing to do with one another. every now and then, however, she returned to it as though it were the only thing she could think of, and she would try it again. she seemed to say she was certain there had been no knot there before--she must have seen it if there had been; and yet, the fly could hardly have got jammed so firmly into the wood. she was puzzled and irritated beyond measure, and kept looking in the same place again and again, just as we do when we have mislaid something. she was rapidly losing temper and dignity when suddenly we saw the fly reappear from under the cat's stomach and make for the window-pane, at the very moment when the cat herself was exclaiming for the fiftieth time that she wondered where that stupid fly ever could have got to. no man who has been hunting twenty minutes for his spectacles could be more delighted when he suddenly finds them on his own forehead. "so that's where you were," we seemed to hear her say, as she proceeded to catch it, and again began rolling it very softly without hurting it, under her paw. my friend and i both noticed that the cat, in spite of her perplexity, never so much as hinted that we were the culprits. the question whether anything outside the window could do her good or harm had long since been settled by her in the negative, and she was not going to reopen it; she simply cut us dead, and though her annoyance was so great that she was manifestly ready to lay the blame on anybody or anything with or without reason, and though she must have perfectly well known that we were watching the whole affair with amusement, she never either asked us if we had happened to see such a thing as a fly go down our way lately, or accused us of having taken it from her--both of which ideas she would, i am confident, have been very well able to convey to us if she had been so minded. now what are thought and reason if the processes that were going through this cat's mind were not both one and the other? it would be childish to suppose that the cat thought in words of its own, or in anything like words. its thinking was probably conducted through the instrumentality of a series of mental images. we so habitually think in words ourselves that we find it difficult to realize thought without words at all; our difficulty, however, in imagining the particular manner in which the cat thinks has nothing to do with the matter. we must answer the question whether she thinks or no, not according to our own ease or difficulty in understanding the particular manner of her thinking, but according as her action does or does not appear to be of the same character as other action that we commonly call thoughtful. to say that the cat is not intelligent, merely on the ground that we cannot ourselves fathom her intelligence--this, as i have elsewhere said, is to make intelligence mean the power of being understood, rather than the power of understanding. this nevertheless is what, for all our boasted intelligence, we generally do. the more we can understand an animal's ways, the more intelligent we call it, and the less we can understand these, the more stupid do we declare it to be. as for plants--whose punctuality and attention to all the details and routine of their somewhat restricted lines of business is as obvious as it is beyond all praise--we understand the working of their minds so little that by common consent we declare them to have no intelligence at all. before concluding i should wish to deal a little more fully with professor max muller's contention that there can be no reason without language, and no language without reason. surely when two practised pugilists are fighting, parrying each other's blows, and watching keenly for an unguarded point, they are thinking and reasoning very subtly the whole time, without doing so in words. the machination of their thoughts, as well as its expression, is actual--i mean, effectuated and expressed by action and deed, not words. they are unaware of any logical sequence of thought that they could follow in words as passing through their minds at all. they may perhaps think consciously in words now and again, but such thought will be intermittent, and the main part of the fighting will be done without any internal concomitance of articulated phrases. yet we cannot doubt that their action, however much we may disapprove of it, is guided by intelligence and reason; nor should we doubt that a reasoning process of the same character goes on in the minds of two dogs or fighting-cocks when they are striving to master their opponents. do we think in words, again, when we wind up our watches, put on our clothes, or eat our breakfasts? if we do, it is generally about something else. we do these things almost as much without the help of words as we wink or yawn, or perform any of those other actions that we call reflex, as it would almost seem because they are done without reflection. they are not, however, the less reasonable because wordless. even when we think we are thinking in words, we do so only in half measure. a running accompaniment of words no doubt frequently attends our thoughts; but, unless we are writing or speaking, this accompaniment is of the vaguest and most fitful kind, as we often find out when we try to write down or say what we are thinking about, though we have a fairly definite notion of it, or fancy that we have one, all the time. the thought is not steadily and coherently governed by and moulded in words, nor does it steadily govern them. words and thought interact upon and help one another, as any other mechanical appliances interact on and help the invention that first hit upon them; but reason or thought, for the most part, flies along over the heads of words, working its own mysterious way in paths that are beyond our ken, though whether some of our departmental personalities are as unconscious of what is passing, as that central government is which we alone dub with the name of "we" or "us," is a point on which i will not now touch. i cannot think, then, that professor max muller's contention that thought and language are identical--and he has repeatedly affirmed this--will ever be generally accepted. thought is no more identical with language than feeling is identical with the nervous system. true, we can no more feel without a nervous system than we can discern certain minute organisms without a microscope. destroy the nervous system, and we destroy feeling. destroy the microscope, and we can no longer see the animalcules; but our sight of the animalcules is not the microscope, though it is effectuated by means of the microscope, and our feeling is not the nervous system, though the nervous system is the instrument that enables us to feel. the nervous system is a device which living beings have gradually perfected--i believe i may say quite truly--through the will and power which they have derived from a fountain-head, the existence of which we can infer, but which we can never apprehend. by the help of this device, and in proportion as they have perfected it, living beings feel ever with great definiteness, and hence formulate their feelings in thought with more and more precision. the higher evolution of thought has reacted on the nervous system, and the consequent higher evolution of the nervous system has again reacted upon thought. these things are as power and desire, or supply and demand, each one of which is continually outstripping, and being in turn outstripped by the other; but, in spite of their close connection and interaction, power is not desire, nor demand supply. language is a device evolved sometimes by leaps and bounds, and sometimes exceedingly slowly, whereby we help ourselves alike to greater ease, precision, and complexity of thought, and also to more convenient interchange of thought among ourselves. thought found rude expression, which gradually among other forms assumed that of words. these reacted upon thought, and thought again on them, but thought is no more identical with words than words are with the separate letters of which they are composed. to sum up, then, and to conclude. i would ask you to see the connection between words and ideas as in the first instance arbitrary. no doubt in some cases an imitation of the cry of some bird or wild beast would suggest the name that should be attached to it; occasionally the sound of an operation such as grinding may have influenced the choice of the letters g, r, as the root of many words that denote a grinding, grating, grasping, crushing action; but i understand that the number of words due to direct imitation is comparatively few in number, and that they have been mainly coined as the result of connections so far-fetched and fanciful as to amount practically to no connection at all. once chosen, however, they were adhered to for a considerable time among the dwellers in any given place, so as to become acknowledged as the vulgar tongue, and raise readily in the mind of the inhabitants of that place the ideas with which they had been artificially associated. as regards our being able to think and reason without words, the duke of argyll has put the matter as soundly as i have yet seen it stated. "it seems to me," he wrote, "quite certain that we can and do constantly think of things without thinking of any sound or word as designating them. language seems to me to be necessary for the progress of thought, but not at all for the mere act of thinking. it is a product of thought, an expression of it, a vehicle for the communication of it, and an embodiment which is essential to its growth and continuity; but it seems to me altogether erroneous to regard it as an inseparable part of cogitation." the following passages, again, are quoted from sir william hamilton in professor max muller's own book, with so much approval as to lead one to suppose that the differences between himself and his opponents are in reality less than he believes them to be. "language," says sir w. hamilton, "is the attribution of signs to our cognitions of things. but as a cognition must have already been there before it could receive a sign, consequently that knowledge which is denoted by the formation and application of a word must have preceded the symbol that denotes it. a sign, however, is necessary to give stability to our intellectual progress--to establish each step in our advance as a new starting-point for our advance to another beyond. a country may be overrun by an armed host, but it is only conquered by the establishment of fortresses. words are the fortresses of thought. they enable us to realize our dominion over what we have already overrun in thought; to make every intellectual conquest the base of operations for others still beyond." "this," says professor max muller, "is a most happy illustration," and he proceeds to quote the following, also from sir william hamilton, which he declares to be even happier still. "you have all heard," says sir william hamilton, "of the process of tunnelling through a sandbank. in this operation it is impossible to succeed unless every foot, nay, almost every inch of our progress be secured by an arch of masonry before we attempted the excavation of another. now language is to the mind precisely what the arch is to the tunnel. the power of thinking and the power of excavation are not dependent on the words in the one case or on the mason-work in the other; but without these subsidiaries neither could be carried on beyond its rudimentary commencement. though, therefore, we allow that every movement forward in language must be determined by an antecedent movement forward in thought, still, unless thought be accompanied at each point of its evolutions by a corresponding evolution of language, its further development is arrested." man has evolved an articulate language, whereas the lower animals seem to be without one. man, therefore, has far outstripped them in reasoning faculty as well as in power of expression. this, however, does not bar the communications which the lower animals make to one another from possessing all the essential characteristics of language, and, as a matter of fact, wherever we can follow them we find such communications effectuated by the aid of arbitrary symbols covenanted upon by the living beings that wish to communicate, and persistently associated with certain corresponding feelings, states of mind, or material objects. human language is nothing more than this in principle, however much further the principle has been carried in our own case than in that of the lower animals. this being admitted, we should infer that the thought or reason on which the language of men and animals is alike founded differs as between men and brutes in degree but not in kind. more than this cannot be claimed on behalf of the lower animals, even by their most enthusiastic admirer. the deadlock in darwinism: part i {245} it will be readily admitted that of all living writers mr. alfred russel wallace is the one the peculiar turn of whose mind best fits him to write on the subject of natural selection, or the accumulation of fortunate but accidental variations through descent and the struggle for existence. his mind in all its more essential characteristics closely resembles that of the late mr. charles darwin himself, and it is no doubt due to this fact that he and mr. darwin elaborated their famous theory at the same time, and independently of one another. i shall have occasion in the course of the following article to show how misled and misleading both these distinguished men have been, in spite of their unquestionable familiarity with the whole range of animal and vegetable phenomena. i believe it will be more respectful to both of them to do this in the most outspoken way. i believe their work to have been as mischievous as it has been valuable, and as valuable as it has been mischievous; and higher, whether praise or blame, i know not how to give. nevertheless i would in the outset, and with the utmost sincerity, admit concerning messrs. wallace and darwin that neither can be held as the more profound and conscientious thinker; neither can be put forward as the more ready to acknowledge obligation to the great writers on evolution who had preceded him, or to place his own developments in closer and more conspicuous historical connection with earlier thought upon the subject; neither is the more ready to welcome criticism and to state his opponent's case in the most pointed and telling way in which it can be put; neither is the more quick to encourage new truth; neither is the more genial, generous adversary, or has the profounder horror of anything even approaching literary or scientific want of candour; both display the same inimitable power of putting their opinions forward in the way that shall best ensure their acceptance; both are equally unrivalled in the tact that tells them when silence will be golden, and when on the other hand a whole volume of facts may be advantageously brought forward. less than the foregoing tribute both to messrs. darwin and wallace i will not, and more i cannot pay. let us now turn to the most authoritative exponent of latter-day evolution--i mean to mr. wallace, whose work, entitled darwinism, though it should have been entitled wallaceism, is still so far darwinistic that it develops the teaching of mr. darwin in the direction given to it by mr. darwin himself--so far, indeed, as this can be ascertained at all--and not in that of lamarck. mr. wallace tells us, on the first page of his preface, that he has no intention of dealing even in outline with the vast subject of evolution in general, and has only tried to give such an account of the theory of natural selection as may facilitate a clear conception of darwin's work. how far he has succeeded is a point on which opinion will probably be divided. those who find mr. darwin's works clear will also find no difficulty in understanding mr. wallace; those, on the other hand, who find mr. darwin puzzling are little likely to be less puzzled by mr. wallace. he continues:-"the objections now made to darwin's theory apply solely to the particular means by which the change of species has been brought about, not to the fact of that change." but "darwin's theory"--as mr. wallace has elsewhere proved that he understands--has no reference "to the fact of that change"--that is to say, to the fact that species have been modified in course of descent from other species. this is no more mr. darwin's theory than it is the reader's or my own. darwin's theory is concerned only with "the particular means by which the change of species has been brought about"; his contention being that this is mainly due to the natural survival of those individuals that have happened by some accident to be born most favourably adapted to their surroundings, or, in other words, through accumulation in the common course of nature of the more lucky variations that chance occasionally purveys. mr. wallace's words, then, in reality amount to this, that the objections now made to darwin's theory apply solely to darwin's theory, which is all very well as far as it goes, but might have been more easily apprehended if he had simply said, "there are several objections now made to mr. darwin's theory." it must be remembered that the passage quoted above occurs on the first page of a preface dated march, 1889, when the writer had completed his task, and was most fully conversant with his subject. nevertheless, it seems indisputable either that he is still confusing evolution with mr. darwin's theory, or that he does not know when his sentences have point and when they have none. i should perhaps explain to some readers that mr. darwin did not modify the main theory put forward, first by buffon, to whom it indisputably belongs, and adopted from him by erasmus darwin, lamarck, and many other writers in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the earlier years of the nineteenth. the early evolutionists maintained that all existing forms of animal and vegetable life, including man, were derived in course of descent with modification from forms resembling the lowest now known. mr. darwin went as far as this, and farther no one can go. the point at issue between him and his predecessors involves neither the main fact of evolution, nor yet the geometrical ratio of increase, and the struggle for existence consequent thereon. messrs. darwin and wallace have each thrown invaluable light upon these last two points, but buffon, as early as 1756, had made them the keystone of his system. "the movement of nature," he then wrote, "turns on two immovable pivots: one, the illimitable fecundity which she has given to all species: the other, the innumerable difficulties which reduce the results of that fecundity." erasmus darwin and lamarck followed in the same sense. they thus admit the survival of the fittest as fully as mr. darwin himself, though they do not make use of this particular expression. the dispute turns not upon natural selection, which is common to all writers on evolution, but upon the nature and causes of the variations that are supposed to be selected from and thus accumulated. are these mainly attributable to the inherited effects of use and disuse, supplemented by occasional sports and happy accidents? or are they mainly due to sports and happy accidents, supplemented by occasional inherited effects of use and disuse? the lamarckian system has all along been maintained by mr. herbert spencer, who, in his principles of biology, published in 1865, showed how impossible it was that accidental variations should accumulate at all. i am not sure how far mr. spencer would consent to being called a lamarckian pure and simple, nor yet how far it is strictly accurate to call him one; nevertheless, i can see no important difference in the main positions taken by him and by lamarck. the question at issue between the lamarckians, supported by mr. spencer and a growing band of those who have risen in rebellion against the charles-darwinian system on the one hand, and messrs. darwin and wallace with the greater number of our more prominent biologists on the other, involves the very existence of evolution as a workable theory. for it is plain that what nature can be supposed able to do by way of choice must depend on the supply of the variations from which she is supposed to choose. she cannot take what is not offered to her; and so again she cannot be supposed able to accumulate unless what is gained in one direction in one generation, or series of generations, is little likely to be lost in those that presently succeed. now variations ascribed mainly to use and disuse can be supposed capable of being accumulated, for use and disuse are fairly constant for long periods among the individuals of the same species, and often over large areas; moreover, conditions of existence involving changes of habit, and thus of organization, come for the most part gradually; so that time is given during which the organism can endeavour to adapt itself in the requisite respects, instead of being shocked out of existence by too sudden change. variations, on the other hand, that are ascribed to mere chance cannot be supposed as likely to be accumulated, for chance is notoriously inconstant, and would not purvey the variations in sufficiently unbroken succession, or in a sufficient number of individuals, modified similarly in all the necessary correlations at the same time and place to admit of their being accumulated. it is vital therefore to the theory of evolution, as was early pointed out by the late professor fleeming jenkin and by mr. herbert spencer, that variations should be supposed to have a definite and persistent principle underlying them, which shall tend to engender similar and simultaneous modification, however small, in the vast majority of individuals composing any species. the existence of such a principle and its permanence is the only thing that can be supposed capable of acting as rudder and compass to the accumulation of variations, and of making it hold steadily on one course for each species, till eventually many havens, far remote from one another, are safely reached. it is obvious that the having fatally impaired the theory of his predecessors could not warrant mr. darwin in claiming, as he most fatuously did, the theory of evolution. that he is still generally believed to have been the originator of this theory is due to the fact that he claimed it, and that a powerful literary backing at once came forward to support him. it seems at first sight improbable that those who too zealously urged his claims were unaware that so much had been written on the subject, but when we find even mr. wallace himself as profoundly ignorant on this subject as he still either is, or affects to be, there is no limit assignable to the ignorance or affected ignorance of the kind of biologists who would write reviews in leading journals thirty years ago. mr. wallace writes:-"a few great naturalists, struck by the very slight difference between many of these species, and the numerous links that exist between the most different forms of animals and plants, and also observing that a great many species do vary considerably in their forms, colours and habits, conceived the idea that they might be all produced one from the other. the most eminent of these writers was a great french naturalist, lamarck, who published an elaborate work, the philosophie zoologique, in which he endeavoured to prove that all animals whatever are descended from other species of animals. he attributed the change of species chiefly to the effect of changes in the conditions of life--such as climate, food, etc.; and especially to the desires and efforts of the animals themselves to improve their condition, leading to a modification of form or size in certain parts, owing to the well-known physiological law that all organs are strengthened by constant use, while they are weakened or even completely lost by disuse. . . . "the only other important work dealing with the question was the celebrated vestiges of creation, published anonymously, but now acknowledged to have been written by the late robert chambers." none are so blind as those who will not see, and it would be waste of time to argue with the invincible ignorance of one who thinks lamarck and buffon conceived that all species were produced from one another, more especially as i have already dealt at some length with the early evolutionists in my work evolution, old and new, first published ten years ago, and not, so far as i am aware, detected in serious error or omission. if, however, mr. wallace still thinks it safe to presume so far on the ignorance of his readers as to say that the only two important works on evolution before mr. darwin's were lamarck's philosophie zoologique and the vestiges of creation, how fathomable is the ignorance of the average reviewer likely to have been thirty years ago, when the origin of species was first published? mr. darwin claimed evolution as his own theory. of course, he would not claim it if he had no right to it. then by all means give him the credit of it. this was the most natural view to take, and it was generally taken. it was not, moreover, surprising that people failed to appreciate all the niceties of mr. darwin's "distinctive feature" which, whether distinctive or no, was assuredly not distinct, and was never frankly contrasted with the older view, as it would have been by one who wished it to be understood and judged upon its merits. it was in consequence of this omission that people failed to note how fast and loose mr. darwin played with his distinctive feature, and how readily he dropped it on occasion. it may be said that the question of what was thought by the predecessors of mr. darwin is, after all, personal, and of no interest to the general public, comparable to that of the main issue--whether we are to accept evolution or not. granted that buff on, erasmus darwin, and lamarck bore the burden and heat of the day before mr. charles darwin was born, they did not bring people round to their opinion, whereas mr. darwin and mr. wallace did, and the public cannot be expected to look beyond this broad and indisputable fact. the answer to this is, that the theory which messrs. darwin and wallace have persuaded the public to accept is demonstrably false, and that the opponents of evolution are certain in the end to triumph over it. paley, in his natural theology, long since brought forward far too much evidence of design in animal organization to allow of our setting down its marvels to the accumulation of fortunate accident, undirected by will, effort and intelligence. those who examine the main facts of animal and vegetable organization without bias will, no doubt, ere long conclude that all animals and vegetables are derived ultimately from unicellular organisms, but they will not less readily perceive that the evolution of species without the concomitance and direction of mind and effort is as inconceivable as is the independent creation of every individual species. the two facts, evolution and design, are equally patent to plain people. there is no escaping from either. according to messrs. darwin and wallace, we may have evolution, but are on no account to have it as mainly due to intelligent effort, guided by ever higher and higher range of sensations, perceptions, and ideas. we are to set it down to the shuffling of cards, or the throwing of dice without the play, and this will never stand. according to the older men, cards did indeed count for much, but play counted for more. they denied the teleology of the time--that is to say, the teleology that saw all adaptation to surroundings as part of a plan devised long ages since by a quasi-anthropomorphic being who schemed everything out much as a man would do, but on an infinitely vaster scale. this conception they found repugnant alike to intelligence and conscience, but, though they do not seem to have perceived it, they left the door open for a design more true and more demonstrable than that which they excluded. by making their variations mainly due to effort and intelligence, they made organic development run on all-fours with human progress, and with inventions which we have watched growing up from small beginnings. they made the development of man from the amoeba part and parcel of the story that may be read, though on an infinitely smaller scale, in the development of our most powerful marine engines from the common kettle, or of our finest microscopes from the dew-drop. the development of the steam-engine and the microscope is due to intelligence and design, which did indeed utilize chance suggestions, but which improved on these, and directed each step of their accumulation, though never foreseeing more than a step or two ahead, and often not so much as this. the fact, as i have elsewhere urged, that the man who made the first kettle did not foresee the engines of the great eastern, or that he who first noted the magnifying power of the dew-drop had no conception of our present microscopes--the very limited amount, in fact, of design and intelligence that was called into play at any one point--this does not make us deny that the steam-engine and microscope owe their development to design. if each step of the road was designed, the whole journey was designed, though the particular end was not designed when the journey was begun. and so is it, according to the older view of evolution, with the development of those living organs, or machines, that are born with us, as part of the perambulating carpenter's chest we call our bodies. the older view gives us our design, and gives us our evolution too. if it refuses to see a quasi-anthropomorphic god modelling each species from without as a potter models clay, it gives us god as vivifying and indwelling in all his creatures--he in them, and they in him. if it refuses to see god outside the universe, it equally refuses to see any part of the universe as outside god. if it makes the universe the body of god, it also makes god the soul of the universe. the question at issue, then, between the darwinism of erasmus darwin and the neo-darwinism of his grandson, is not a personal one, nor anything like a personal one. it not only involves the existence of evolution, but it affects the view we take of life and things in an endless variety of most interesting and important ways. it is imperative, therefore, on those who take any interest in these matters, to place side by side in the clearest contrast the views of those who refer the evolution of species mainly to accumulation of variations that have no other inception than chance, and of that older school which makes design perceive and develop still further the goods that chance provides. but over and above this, which would be in itself sufficient, the historical mode of studying any question is the only one which will enable us to comprehend it effectually. the personal element cannot be eliminated from the consideration of works written by living persons for living persons. we want to know who is who--whom we can depend upon to have no other end than the making things clear to himself and his readers, and whom we should mistrust as having an ulterior aim on which he is more intent than on the furthering of our better understanding. we want to know who is doing his best to help us, and who is only trying to make us help him, or to bolster up the system in which his interests are vested. there is nothing that will throw more light upon these points than the way in which a man behaves towards those who have worked in the same field with himself, and, again, than his style. a man's style, as buffon long since said, is the man himself. by style, i do not, of course, mean grammar or rhetoric, but that style of which buffon again said that it is like happiness, and vient de la douceur de l'ame. when we find a man concealing worse than nullity of meaning under sentences that sound plausibly enough, we should distrust him much as we should a fellow-traveller whom we caught trying to steal our watch. we often cannot judge of the truth or falsehood of facts for ourselves, but we most of us know enough of human nature to be able to tell a good witness from a bad one. however this may be, and whatever we may think of judging systems by the directness or indirectness of those who advance them, biologists, having committed themselves too rashly, would have been more than human if they had not shown some pique towards those who dared to say, first, that the theory of messrs. darwin and wallace was unworkable; and secondly, that even though it were workable it would not justify either of them in claiming evolution. when biologists show pique at all they generally show a good deal of pique, but pique or no pique, they shunned mr. spencer's objection above referred to with a persistency more unanimous and obstinate than i ever remember to have seen displayed even by professional truth-seekers. i find no rejoinder to it from mr. darwin himself, between 1865 when it was first put forward, and 1882 when mr. darwin died. it has been similarly "ostrichized" by all the leading apologists of darwinism, so far at least as i have been able to observe, and i have followed the matter closely for many years. mr. spencer has repeated and amplified it in his recent work the factors of organic evolution, but it still remains without so much as an attempt at serious answer, for the perfunctory and illusory remarks of mr. wallace at the end of his darwinism cannot be counted as such. the best proof of its irresistible weight is that mr. darwin, though maintaining silence in respect to it, retreated from his original position in the direction that would most obviate mr. spencer's objection. yet this objection has been repeatedly urged by the more prominent anti-charles-darwinian authorities, and there is no sign that the british public is becoming less rigorous in requiring people either to reply to objections repeatedly urged by men of even moderate weight, or to let judgment go by default. as regards mr. darwin's claim to the theory of evolution generally, darwinians are beginning now to perceive that this cannot be admitted, and either say with some hardihood that mr. darwin never claimed it, or after a few saving clauses to the effect that this theory refers only to the particular means by which evolution has been brought about, imply forthwith thereafter none the less that evolution is mr. darwin's theory. mr. wallace has done this repeatedly in his recent darwinism. indeed, i should be by no means sure that on the first page of his preface, in the passage about "darwin's theory," which i have already somewhat severely criticized, he was not intending evolution by "darwin's theory," if in his preceding paragraph he had not so clearly shown that he knew evolution to be a theory of greatly older date than mr. darwin's. the history of science--well exemplified by that of the development theory--is the history of eminent men who have fought against light and have been worsted. the tenacity with which darwinians stick to their accumulation of fortuitous variations is on a par with the like tenacity shown by the illustrious cuvier, who did his best to crush evolution altogether. it always has been thus, and always will be; nor is it desirable in the interests of truth herself that it should be otherwise. truth is like money--lightly come, lightly go; and if she cannot hold her own against even gross misrepresentation, she is herself not worth holding. misrepresentation in the long run makes truth as much as it mars her; hence our law courts do not think it desirable that pleaders should speak their bona fide opinions, much less that they should profess to do so. rather let each side hoodwink judge and jury as best it can, and let truth flash out from collision of defence and accusation. when either side will not collide, it is an axiom of controversy that it desires to prevent the truth from being elicited. let us now note the courses forced upon biologists by the difficulties of mr. darwin's distinctive feature. mr. darwin and mr. wallace, as is well known, brought the feature forward simultaneously and independently of one another, but mr. wallace always believed in it more firmly than mr. darwin did. mr. darwin as a young man did not believe in it. he wrote before 1839, "nature, by making habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary, has fitted the fuegian for the climate and productions of his country," {259a} a sentence than which nothing can coincide more fully with the older view that use and disuse were the main purveyors of variations, or conflict more fatally with his own subsequent distinctive feature. moreover, as i showed in my last work on evolution, {259b} in the peroration to his origin of species, he discarded his accidental variations altogether, and fell back on the older theory, so that the body of the origin of species supports one theory, and the peroration another that differs from it toto coelo. finally, in his later editions, he retreated indefinitely from his original position, edging always more and more continually towards the theory of his grandfather and lamarck. these facts convince me that he was at no time a thoroughgoing darwinian, but was throughout an unconscious lamarckian, though ever anxious to conceal the fact alike from himself and from his readers. not so with mr. wallace, who was both more outspoken in the first instance, and who has persevered along the path of wallaceism just as mr. darwin with greater sagacity was ever on the retreat from darwinism. mr. wallace's profounder faith led him in the outset to place his theory in fuller daylight than mr. darwin was inclined to do. mr. darwin just waved lamarck aside, and said as little about him as he could, while in his earlier editions erasmus darwin and buffon were not so much as named. mr. wallace, on the contrary, at once raised the lamarckian spectre, and declared it exorcized. he said the lamarckian hypothesis was "quite unnecessary." the giraffe did not "acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions, and on the first scarcity of food were thus enabled to outlive them." {260} "which occurred" is evidently "which happened to occur" by some chance of accident unconnected with use and disuse. the word "accident" is never used, but mr. wallace must be credited with this instance of a desire to give his readers a chance of perceiving that according to his distinctive feature evolution is an affair of luck, rather than of cunning. whether his readers actually did understand this as clearly as mr. wallace doubtless desired that they should, and whether greater development at this point would not have helped them to fuller apprehension, we need not now inquire. what was gained in distinctness might have been lost in distinctiveness, and after all he did technically put us upon our guard. nevertheless, he too at a pinch takes refuge in lamarckism. in relation to the manner in which the eyes of soles, turbots, and other flat-fish travel round the head so as to become in the end unsymmetrically placed, he says:-"the eyes of these fish are curiously distorted in order that both eyes may be upon the upper side, where alone they would be of any use. . . . now if we suppose this process, which in the young is completed in a few days or weeks, to have been spread over thousands of generations during the development of these fish, those usually surviving _whose eyes retained more and more of the position into which the young fish tried to twist them_ [italics mine], the change becomes intelligible." {261} when it was said by professor ray lankester--who knows as well as most people what lamarck taught-that this was "flat lamarckism," mr. wallace rejoined that it was the survival of the modified individuals that did it all, not the efforts of the young fish to twist their eyes, and the transmission to descendants of the effects of those efforts. but this, as i said in my book evolution, old and new, is like saying that horses are swift runners, not by reason of the causes, whatever they were, that occasioned the direct line of their progenitors to vary towards ever greater and greater swiftness, but because their more slow-going uncles and aunts go away. plain people will prefer to say that the main cause of any accumulation of favourable modifications consists rather in that which brings about the initial variations, and in the fact that these can be inherited at all, than in the fact that the unmodified individuals were not successful. people do not become rich because the poor in large numbers go away, but because they have been lucky, or provident, or more commonly both. if they would keep their wealth when they have made it they must exclude luck thenceforth to the utmost of their power and their children must follow their example, or they will soon lose their money. the fact that the weaker go to the wall does not bring about the greater strength of the stronger; it is the consequence of this last and not the cause--unless, indeed, it be contended that a knowledge that the weak go to the wall stimulates the strong to exertions which they would not otherwise so make, and that these exertions produce inheritable modifications. even in this case, however, it would be the exertions, or use and disuse, that would be the main agents in the modification. but it is not often that mr. wallace thus backslides. his present position is that acquired (as distinguished from congenital) modifications are not inherited at all. he does not indeed put his faith prominently forward and pin himself to it as plainly as could be wished, but under the heading "the nonheredity of acquired characters," he writes as follows on p. 440 of his recent work in reference to professor weismann's theory of heredity:-"certain observations on the embryology of the lower animals are held to afford direct proof of this theory of heredity, but they are too technical to be made clear to ordinary readers. a logical result of the theory is the impossibility of the transmission of acquired characters, since the molecular structure of the germ-plasm is already determined within the embryo; and weismann holds that there are no facts which really prove that acquired characters can be inherited, although their inheritance has, by most writers, been considered so probable as hardly to stand in need of direct proof. "we have already seen in the earlier part of this chapter that many instances of change, imputed to the inheritance of acquired variations, are really cases of selection." and the rest of the remarks tend to convey the impression that mr. wallace adopts professor weismann's view, but, curiously enough, though i have gone through mr. wallace's book with a special view to this particular point, i have not been able to find him definitely committing himself either to the assertion that acquired modifications never are inherited, or that they sometimes are so. it is abundantly laid down that mr. darwin laid too much stress on use and disuse, and a residuary impression is left that mr. wallace is endorsing professor weismann's view, but i have found it impossible to collect anything that enables me to define his position confidently in this respect. this is natural enough, for mr. wallace has entitled his book darwinism, and a work denying that use and disuse produced any effect could not conceivably be called darwinism. mr. herbert spencer has recently collected many passages from the origin of species and from animals and plants under domestication," {263} which show how largely, after all, use and disuse entered into mr. darwin's system, and we know that in his later years he attached still more importance to them. it was out of the question, therefore, that mr. wallace should categorically deny that their effects were inheritable. on the other hand, the temptation to adopt professor weismann's view must have been overwhelming to one who had been already inclined to minimize the effects of use and disuse. on the whole, one does not see what mr. wallace could do, other than what he has done--unless, of course, he changed his title, or had been no longer mr. wallace. besides, thanks to the works of mr. spencer, professor mivart, professor semper, and very many others, there has for some time been a growing perception that the darwinism of charles darwin was doomed. use and disuse must either do even more than is officially recognized in mr. darwin's later concessions, or they must do a great deal less. if they can do as much as mr. darwin himself said they did, why should they not do more? why stop where mr. darwin did? and again, where in the name of all that is reasonable did he really stop? he drew no line, and on what principle can we say that so much is possible as effect of use and disuse, but so much more impossible? if, as mr. darwin contended, disuse can so far reduce an organ as to render it rudimentary, and in many cases get rid of it altogether, why cannot use create as much as disuse can destroy, provided it has anything, no matter how low in structure, to begin with? let us know where we stand. if it is admitted that use and disuse can do a good deal, what does a good deal mean? and what is the proportion between the shares attributable to use and disuse and to natural selection respectively? if we cannot be told with absolute precision, let us at any rate have something more definite than the statement that natural selection is "the most important means of modification." mr. darwin gave us no help in this respect; and worse than this, he contradicted himself so flatly as to show that he had very little definite idea upon the subject at all. thus in respect to the winglessness of the madeira beetles he wrote:-"in some cases we might easily put down to disuse modifications of structure, which are wholly or mainly due to natural selection. mr. wollaston has discovered the remarkable fact that 200 beetles, out of the 550 species (but more are now known) inhabiting madeira, are so far deficient in wings that they cannot fly; and that of the 29 endemic genera no less than 23 have all their species in this condition! several facts--namely, that beetles in many parts of the world are frequently blown out to sea and perish; that the beetles in madeira, as observed by mr. wollaston, lie much concealed until the wind lulls and the sun shines; that the proportion of wingless beetles is larger on the exposed desertas than in madeira itself; and especially the extraordinary fact, so strongly insisted on by mr. wollaston, that certain large groups of beetles, elsewhere excessively numerous, which absolutely require the use of their wings are here almost entirely absent;--these several considerations make me believe that the wingless condition of so many madeira beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection, _combined probably with disuse_ [italics mine]. for during many successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving, from not being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea, and thus destroyed." {265} we should like to know, first, somewhere about how much disuse was able to do after all, and moreover why, if it can do anything at all, it should not be able to do all. mr. darwin says: "any change in structure and function which can be effected by small stages is within the power of natural selection." "and why not," we ask, "within the power of use and disuse?" moreover, on a later page we find mr. darwin saying:-"_it appears probable that disuse has been the main agent in rendering organs rudimentary_ [italics mine]. it would at first lead by slow steps to the more and more complete reduction of a part, until at last it has become rudimentary--as in the case of the eyes of animals inhabiting dark caverns, and of the wings of birds inhabiting oceanic islands, which have seldom been forced by beasts of prey to take flight, and have ultimately lost the power of flying. again, an organ, useful under certain conditions, might become injurious under others, as _with the wings of beetles living on small and exposed islands_; and in this case natural selection will have aided in reducing the organ, until it was rendered harmless and rudimentary [italics mine]." {266} so that just as an undefined amount of use and disuse was introduced on the earlier page to supplement the effects of natural selection in respect of the wings of beetles on small and exposed islands, we have here an undefined amount of natural selection introduced to supplement the effects of use and disuse in respect of the identical phenomena. in the one passage we find that natural selection has been the main agent in reducing the wings, though use and disuse have had an appreciable share in the result; in the other, it is use and disuse that have been the main agents, though an appreciable share in the result must be ascribed to natural selection. besides, who has seen the uncles and aunts going away with the uniformity that is necessary for mr. darwin's contention? we know that birds and insects do often get blown out to sea and perish, but in order to establish mr. darwin's position we want the evidence of those who watched the reduction of the wings during the many generations in the course of which it was being effected, and who can testify that all, or the overwhelming majority, of the beetles born with fairly well-developed wings got blown out to sea, while those alone survived whose wings were congenitally degenerate. who saw them go, or can point to analogous cases so conclusive as to compel assent from any equitable thinker? darwinians of the stamp of mr. thiselton dyer, professor ray lankester, or mr. romanes, insist on their pound of flesh in the matter of irrefragable demonstration. they complain of us for not bringing forward someone who has been able to detect the movement of the hour-hand of a watch during a second of time, and when we fail to do so, declare triumphantly that we have no evidence that there is any connection between the beating of a second and the movement of the hour-hand. when we say that rain comes from the condensation of moisture in the atmosphere, they demand of us a rain-drop from moisture not yet condensed. if they stickle for proof and cavil on the ninth part of a hair, as they do when we bring forward what we deem excellent instances of the transmission of an acquired characteristic, why may not we, too, demand at any rate some evidence that the unmodified beetles actually did always, or nearly always, get blown out to sea, during the reduction above referred to, and that it is to this fact, and not to the masterly inactivity of their fathers and mothers, that the madeira beetles owe their winglessness? if we begin stickling for proof in this way, our opponents would not be long in letting us know that absolute proof is unattainable on any subject, that reasonable presumption is our highest certainty, and that crying out for too much evidence is as bad as accepting too little. truth is like a photographic sensitized plate, which is equally ruined by over and by under exposure, and the just exposure for which can never be absolutely determined. surely if disuse can be credited with the vast powers involved in mr. darwin's statement that it has probably "been the main agent in rendering organs rudimentary," no limits are assignable to the accumulated effects of habit, provided the effects of habit, or use and disuse, are supposed, as mr. darwin supposed them, to be inheritable at all. darwinians have at length woke up to the dilemma in which they are placed by the manner in which mr. darwin tried to sit on the two stools of use and disuse, and natural selection of accidental variations, at the same time. the knell of charles-darwinism is rung in mr. wallace's present book, and in the general perception on the part of biologists that we must either assign to use and disuse such a predominant share in modification as to make it the feature most proper to be insisted on, or deny that the modifications, whether of mind or body, acquired during a single lifetime, are ever transmitted at all. if they can be inherited at all, they can be accumulated. if they can be accumulated at all, they can be so, for anything that appears to the contrary, to the extent of the specific and generic differences with which we are surrounded. the only thing to do is to pluck them out root and branch: they are as a cancer which, if the smallest fibre be left unexcised, will grow again, and kill any system on to which it is allowed to fasten. mr. wallace, therefore, may well be excused if he casts longing eyes towards weismannism. and what was mr. darwin's system? who can make head or tail of the inextricable muddle in which he left it? the origin of species in its latest shape is the reduction of hedging to an absurdity. how did mr. darwin himself leave it in the last chapter of the last edition of the origin of species? he wrote:-"i have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified during a long course of descent. this has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts, and in an unimportant manner--that is, in relation to adaptive structures whether past or present--by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. it appears that i formerly underrated the frequency and value of these latter forms of variation, as leading to permanent modifications of structure independently of natural selection." the "numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations" above referred to are intended to be fortuitous, accidental, spontaneous. it is the essence of mr. darwin's theory that this should be so. mr. darwin's solemn statement, therefore, of his theory, after he had done his best or his worst with it, is, when stripped of surplusage, as follows:-"the modification of species has been mainly effected by accumulation of spontaneous variations; it has been aided in an important manner by accumulation of variations due to use and disuse, and in an unimportant manner by spontaneous variations; i do not even now think that spontaneous variations have been very important, but i used once to think them less important than i do now." it is a discouraging symptom of the age that such a system should have been so long belauded, and it is a sign of returning intelligence that even he who has been more especially the alter ego of mr. darwin should have felt constrained to close the chapter of charles-darwinism as a living theory, and relegate it to the important but not very creditable place in history which it must henceforth occupy. it is astonishing, however, that mr. wallace should have quoted the extract from the origin of species just given, as he has done on p. 412 of his darwinism, without betraying any sign that he has caught its driftlessness--for drift, other than a desire to hedge, it assuredly has not got. the battle now turns on the question whether modifications of either structure or instinct due to use or disuse are ever inherited, or whether they are not. can the effects of habit be transmitted to progeny at all? we know that more usually they are not transmitted to any perceptible extent, but we believe also that occasionally, and indeed not infrequently, they are inherited and even intensified. what are our grounds for this opinion? it will be my object to put these forward in the following number of the universal review. the deadlock in darwinism: part ii {271} at the close of my article in last month's number of the universal review, i said i would in this month's issue show why the opponents of charles-darwinism believe the effects of habits acquired during the lifetime of a parent to produce an effect on their subsequent offspring, in spite of the fact that we can rarely find the effect in any one generation, or even in several, sufficiently marked to arrest our attention. i will now show that offspring can be, and not very infrequently is, affected by occurrences that have produced a deep impression on the parent organism--the effect produced on the offspring being such as leaves no doubt that it is to be connected with the impression produced on the parent. having thus established the general proposition, i will proceed to the more particular one--that habits, involving use and disuse of special organs, with the modifications of structure thereby engendered, produce also an effect upon offspring, which, though seldom perceptible as regards structure in a single, or even in several generations, is nevertheless capable of being accumulated in successive generations till it amounts to specific and generic difference. i have found the first point as much as i can treat within the limits of this present article, and will avail myself of the hospitality of the universal review next month to deal with the second. the proposition which i have to defend is one which no one till recently would have questioned, and even now those who look most askance at it do not venture to dispute it unreservedly; they every now and then admit it as conceivable, and even in some cases probable; nevertheless they seek to minimize it, and to make out that there is little or no connection between the great mass of the cells of which the body is composed, and those cells that are alone capable of reproducing the entire organism. the tendency is to assign to these last a life of their own, apart from, and unconnected with that of the other cells of the body, and to cheapen all evidence that tends to prove any response on their part to the past history of the individual, and hence ultimately of the race. professor weismann is the foremost exponent of those who take this line. he has naturally been welcomed by english charles-darwinians; for if his view can be sustained, then it can be contended that use and disuse produce no transmissible effect, and the ground is cut from under lamarck's feet; if, on the other hand, his view is unfounded, the lamarckian reaction, already strong, will gain still further strength. the issue, therefore, is important, and is being fiercely contested by those who have invested their all of reputation for discernment in charles-darwinian securities. professor weismann's theory is, that at every new birth a part of the substance which proceeds from parents and which goes to form the new embryo is not used up in forming the new animal, but remains apart to generate the germ-cells--or perhaps i should say "germplasm"--which the new animal itself will in due course issue. contrasting the generally received view with his own, professor weismann says that according to the first of these "the organism produces germ-cells afresh again and again, and that it produces them entirely from its own substance." while by the second "the germ-cells are no longer looked upon as the product of the parent's body, at least as far as their essential part--the specific germplasm--is concerned; they are rather considered as something which is to be placed in contrast with the tout ensemble of the cells which make up the parent's body, and the germ-cells of succeeding generations stand in a similar relation to one another as a series of generations of unicellular organisms arising by a continued process of cell-division." {274a} on another page he writes:-"i believe that heredity depends upon the fact that a small portion of the effective substance of the germ, the germ-plasm, remains unchanged during the development of the ovum into an organism, and that this part of the germ-plasm serves as a foundation from which the germ-cells of the new organism are produced. there is, therefore, continuity of the germ-plasm from one generation to another. one might represent the germ-plasm by the metaphor of a long creeping root-stock from which plants arise at intervals, these latter representing the individuals of successive generations." {274b} mr. wallace, who does not appear to have read professor weismann's essays themselves, but whose remarks are, no doubt, ultimately derived from the sequel to the passage just quoted from page 266 of professor weismann's book, contends that the impossibility of the transmission of acquired characters follows as a logical result from professor weismann's theory, inasmuch as the molecular structure of the germ-plasm that will go to form any succeeding generation is already predetermined within the still unformed embryo of its predecessor; "and weismann," continues mr. wallace, "holds that there are no facts which really prove that acquired characters can be inherited, although their inheritance has, by most writers, been considered so probable as hardly to stand in need of direct proof." {275} professor weismann, in passages too numerous to quote, shows that he recognizes this necessity, and acknowledges that the nontransmission of acquired characters "forms the foundation of the views" set forth in his book, p. 291. professor ray lankester does not commit himself absolutely to this view, but lends it support by saying (nature, december 12, 1889): "it is hardly necessary to say that it has never yet been shown experimentally that _anything_ acquired by one generation is transmitted to the next (putting aside diseases)." mr. romanes, writing in nature, march 13, 1890, and opposing certain details of professor weismann's theory, so far supports it as to say that "there is the gravest possible doubt lying against the supposition that any really inherited decrease is due to the inherited effects of disuse." the "gravest possible doubt" should mean that mr. romanes regards it as a moral certainty that disuse has no transmitted effect in reducing an organ, and it should follow that he holds use to have no transmitted effect in its development. the sequel, however, makes me uncertain how far mr. romanes intends this, and i would refer the reader to the article which mr. romanes has just published on weismann in the contemporary review for this current month. the burden of mr. thiselton dyer's controversy with the duke of argyll (see nature, january 16, 1890, et seq.) was that there was no evidence in support of the transmission of any acquired modification. the orthodoxy of science, therefore, must be held as giving at any rate a provisional support to professor weismann, but all of them, including even professor weismann himself, shrink from committing themselves to the opinion that the germ-cells of any organisms remain in all cases unaffected by the events that occur to the other cells of the same organism, and until they do this they have knocked the bottom out of their case. from among the passages in which professor weismann himself shows a desire to hedge i may take the following from page 170 of his book:-"i am also far from asserting that the germ-plasm which, as i hold, is transmitted as the basis of heredity from one generation to another, is absolutely unchangeable or totally uninfluenced by forces residing in the organism within which it is transformed into germ-cells. i am also compelled to admit it as conceivable that organisms may exert a modifying influence upon their germ-cells, and even that such a process is to a certain extent inevitable. the nutrition and growth of the individual must exercise some influence upon its germ-cells . . . " professor weismann does indeed go on to say that this influence must be extremely slight, but we do not care how slight the changes produced may be, provided they exist and can be transmitted. on an earlier page (p. 101) he said in regard to variations generally that we should not expect to find them conspicuous; their frequency would be enough, if they could be accumulated. the same applies here, if stirring events that occur to the somatic cells can produce any effect at all on offspring. a very small effect, provided it can be repeated and accumulated in successive generations, is all that even the most exacting lamarckian will ask for. having now made the reader acquainted with the position taken by the leading charles-darwinian authorities, i will return to professor weismann himself, who declares that the transmission of acquired characters "at first sight certainly seems necessary," and that "it appears rash to attempt to dispense with its aid." he continues:-"many phenomena only appear to be intelligible if we assume the hereditary transmission of such acquired characters as the changes which we ascribe to the use or disuse of particular organs, or to the direct influence of climate. furthermore, how can we explain instinct as hereditary habit, unless it has gradually arisen by the accumulation, through heredity, of habits which were practised in succeeding generations?" {277} i may say in passing that professor weismann appears to suppose that the view of instinct just given is part of the charles-darwinian system, for on page 389 of his book he says "that many observers had followed darwin in explaining them [instincts] as inherited habits." this was not mr. darwin's own view of the matter. he wrote:-"if we suppose any habitual action to become inherited--and i think it can be shown that this does sometimes happen--then the resemblance between what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. . . . but it would be the most serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations. it can be clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with which we are acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee and of many ants, could not possibly have been thus acquired."--[origin of species, ed. 1859, p. 209.] again we read: "domestic instincts are sometimes spoken of as actions which have become inherited solely from long-continued and compulsory habit, but this, i think, is not true."--ibid., p. 214. again: "i am surprised that no one has advanced this demonstrative case of neuter insects, against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as advanced by lamarck."--[origin of species, ed. 1872, p. 233.] i am not aware that lamarck advanced the doctrine that instinct is inherited habit, but he may have done so in some work that i have not seen. it is true, as i have more than once pointed out, that in the later editions of the origin of species it is no longer "the _most_ serious" error to refer instincts generally to inherited habit, but it still remains "a serious error," and this slight relaxation of severity does not warrant professor weismann in ascribing to mr. darwin an opinion which he emphatically condemned. his tone, however, is so off-hand, that those who have little acquaintance with the literature of evolution would hardly guess that he is not much better informed on this subject than themselves. returning to the inheritance of acquired characters, professor weismann says that this has never been proved either by means of direct observation or by experiment. "it must be admitted," he writes, "that there are in existence numerous descriptions of cases which tend to prove that such mutilations as the loss of fingers, the scars of wounds, etc., are inherited by the offspring, but in these descriptions the previous history is invariably obscure, and hence the evidence loses all scientific value." the experiments of m. brown-sequard throw so much light upon the question at issue that i will quote at some length from the summary given by mr. darwin in his variation of animals and plants under domestication. {279} mr. darwin writes:-"with respect to the inheritance of structures mutilated by injuries or altered by disease, it was until lately difficult to come to any definite conclusion." [then follow several cases in which mutilations practised for many generations are not found to be transmitted.] "notwithstanding," continues mr. darwin, "the above several negative cases, we now possess conclusive evidence that the effects of operations are sometimes inherited. dr. brown-sequard gives the following summary of his observations on guinea-pigs, and this summary is so important that i will quote the whole:-"'1st. appearance of epilepsy in animals born of parents having been rendered epileptic by an injury to the spinal cord. "'2nd. appearance of epilepsy also in animals born of parents having been rendered epileptic by the section of the sciatic nerve. "'3rd. a change in the shape of the ear in animals born of parents in which such a change was the effect of a division of the cervical sympathetic nerve. "'4th. partial closure of the eyelids in animals born of parents in which that state of the eyelids had been caused either by the section of the cervical sympathetic nerve or the removal of the superior cervical ganglion. "'5th. exophthalmia in animals born of parents in which an injury to the restiform body had produced that protrusion of the eyeball. this interesting fact i have witnessed a good many times, and i have seen the transmission of the morbid state of the eye continue through four generations. in these animals modified by heredity, the two eyes generally protruded, although in the parents usually only one showed exophthalmia, the lesion having been made in most cases only on one of the corpora restiformia. "'6th. haematoma and dry gangrene of the ears in animals born of parents in which these ear-alterations had been caused by an injury to the restiform body near the nib of the calamus. "'7th. absence of two toes out of the three of the hind leg, and sometimes of the three, in animals whose parents had eaten up their hind-leg toes which had become anaesthetic from a section of the sciatic nerve alone, or of that nerve and also of the crural. sometimes, instead of complete absence of the toes, only a part of one or two or three was missing in the young, although in the parent not only the toes but the whole foot was absent (partly eaten off, partly destroyed by inflammation, ulceration, or gangrene). "'8th. appearance of various morbid states of the skin and hair of the neck and face in animals born of parents having had similar alterations in the same parts, as effects of an injury to the sciatic nerve.' "it should be especially observed that brown-sequard had bred during thirty years many thousand guinea-pigs from animals which had not been operated upon, and not one of these manifested the epileptic tendency. nor has he ever seen a guinea-pig born without toes, which was not the offspring of parents which had gnawed off their own toes owing to the sciatic nerve having been divided. of this latter fact thirteen instances were carefully recorded, and a greater number were seen; yet brown-sequard speaks of such cases as one of the rarer forms of inheritance. it is a still more interesting fact, 'that the sciatic nerve in the congenitally toeless animal has inherited the power of passing through all the different morbid states which have occurred in one of its parents from the time of the division till after its reunion with the peripheric end. it is not, therefore, simply the power of performing an action which is inherited, but the power of performing a whole series of actions, in a certain order.' "in most of the cases of inheritance recorded by brown-sequard only one of the two parents had been operated upon and was affected. he concludes by expressing his belief that 'what is transmitted is the morbid state of the nervous system,' due to the operation performed on the parents." mr. darwin proceeds to give other instances of inherited effects of mutilations:-"with the horse there seems hardly a doubt that exostoses on the legs, caused by too much travelling on hard roads, are inherited. blumenbach records the case of a man who had his little finger on the right hand almost cut off, and which in consequence grew crooked, and his sons had the same finger on the same hand similarly crooked. a soldier, fifteen years before his marriage, lost his left eye from purulent ophthalmia, and his two sons were microphthalmic on the same side." the late professor rolleston, whose competence as an observer no one is likely to dispute, gave mr. darwin two cases as having fallen under his own notice, one of a man whose knee had been severely wounded, and whose child was born with the same spot marked or scarred, and the other of one who was severely cut upon the cheek, and whose child was born scarred in the same place. mr. darwin's conclusion was that "the effects of injuries, especially when followed by disease, or perhaps exclusively when thus followed, are occasionally inherited." let us now see what professor weismann has to say against this. he writes:-"the only cases worthy of discussion are the well-known experiments upon guinea-pigs conducted by the french physiologist, brownsequard. but the explanation of his results is, in my opinion, open to discussion. in these cases we have to do with the apparent transmission of artificially produced malformations. . . . all these effects were said to be transmitted to descendants as far as the fifth or sixth generation. "but we must inquire whether these cases are really due to heredity, and not to simple infection. in the case of epilepsy, at any rate, it is easy to imagine that the passage of some specific organism through the reproductive cells may take place, as in the case of syphilis. we are, however, entirely ignorant of the nature of the former disease. this suggested explanation may not perhaps apply to the other cases; but we must remember that animals which have been subjected to such severe operations upon the nervous system have sustained a great shock, and if they are capable of breeding, it is only probable that they will produce weak descendants, and such as are easily affected by disease. such a result does not, however, explain why the offspring should suffer from the same disease as that which was artificially induced in the parents. but this does not appear to have been by any means invariably the case. brownsequard himself says: 'the changes in the eye of the offspring were of a very variable nature, and were only occasionally exactly similar to those observed in the parents.' "there is no doubt, however, that these experiments demand careful consideration, but before they can claim scientific recognition, they must be subjected to rigid criticism as to the precautions taken, the nature and number of the control experiments, etc. "up to the present time such necessary conditions have not been sufficiently observed. the recent experiments themselves are only described in short preliminary notices, which, as regards their accuracy, the possibility of mistake, the precautions taken, and the exact succession of individuals affected, afford no data on which a scientific opinion can be founded" (pp. 81, 82). the line professor weismann takes, therefore, is to discredit the facts; yet on a later page we find that the experiments have since been repeated by obersteiner, "who has described them in a very exact and unprejudiced manner," and that "the fact"--(i imagine that professor weismann intends "the facts")--"cannot be doubted." on a still later page, however, we read:-"if, for instance, it could be shown that artificial mutilation spontaneously reappears in the offspring with sufficient frequency to exclude all possibilities of chance, then such proof [i.e. that acquired characters can be transmitted] would be forthcoming. the transmission of mutilations has been frequently asserted, and has been even recently again brought forward, but all the supposed instances have broken down when carefully examined" (p. 390). here, then, we are told that proof of the occasional transmission of mutilations would be sufficient to establish the fact, but on p. 267 we find that no single fact is known which really proves that acquired characters can be transmitted, "_for the ascertained facts which seem to point to the transmission of artificially produced diseases cannot be considered as proof_." [italics mine.] perhaps; but it was mutilation in many cases that professor weismann practically admitted to have been transmitted when he declared that obersteiner had verified brown-sequard's experiments. that professor weismann recognizes the vital importance to his own theory of the question whether or no mutilations can be transmitted under any circumstances, is evident from a passage on p. 425 of his work, on which he says: "it can hardly be doubted that mutilations are acquired characters; they do not arise from any tendency contained in the germ, but are merely the reaction of the body under certain external influences. they are, as i have recently expressed it, purely somatogenic characters--viz. characters which emanate from the body (soma) only, as opposed to the germ-cells; they are, therefore, characters that do not arise from the germ itself. "if mutilations must necessarily be transmitted" [which no one that i know of has maintained], "or even if they might occasionally be transmitted" [which cannot, i imagine, be reasonably questioned], "a powerful support would be given to the lamarckian principle, and the transmission of functional hypertrophy or atrophy would thus become highly probable." i have not found any further attempt in professor weismann's book to deal with the evidence adduced by mr. darwin to show that mutilations, if followed by diseases, are sometimes inherited; and i must leave it to the reader to determine how far professor weismann has shown reason for rejecting mr. darwin's conclusion. i do not, however, dwell upon these facts now as evidence of a transmitted change of bodily form, or of instinct due to use and disuse or habit; what they prove is that the germ-cells within the parent's body do not stand apart from the other cells of the body so completely as professor weismann would have us believe, but that, as professor hering, of prague, has aptly said, they echo with more or less frequency and force to the profounder impressions made upon other cells. i may say that professor weismann does not more cavalierly wave aside the mass of evidence collected by mr. darwin and a host of other writers, to the effect that mutilations are sometimes inherited, than does mr. wallace, who says that, "as regards mutilations, it is generally admitted that they are not inherited, and there is ample evidence on this point." it is indeed generally admitted that mutilations, when not followed by disease, are very rarely, if ever, inherited; and mr. wallace's appeal to the "ample evidence" which he alleges to exist on this head, is much as though he should say that there is ample evidence to show that the days are longer in summer than in winter. "nevertheless," he continues, "a few cases of apparent inheritance of mutilations have been recorded, and these, if trustworthy, are difficulties in the way of the theory." . . . "the often-quoted case of a disease induced by mutilation being inherited (brown-sequard's epileptic guinea-pigs) has been discussed by professor weismann and shown to be not conclusive. the mutilation itself--a section of certain nerves--was never inherited, but the resulting epilepsy, or a general state of weakness, deformity, or sores, was sometimes inherited. it is, however, possible that the mere injury introduced and encouraged the growth of certain microbes, which, spreading through the organism, sometimes reached the germ-cells, and thus transmitted a diseased condition to the offspring." {286} i suppose a microbe which made guinea-pigs eat their toes off was communicated to the germ-cells of an unfortunate guinea-pig which had been already microbed by it, and made the offspring bite its toes off too. the microbe has a good deal to answer for. on the case of the deterioration of horses in the falkland islands after a few generations, professor weismann says:-"in such a case we have only to assume that the climate which is unfavourable, and nutriment which is insufficient for horses, affect not only the animal as a whole but also its germ-cells. this would result in the diminution in size of the germ-cells, the effects upon the offspring being still further intensified by the insufficient nourishment supplied during growth. but such results would not depend upon the transmission by the germ-cells of certain peculiarities due to the unfavourable climate, which only appear in the full-grown horse." but professor weismann does not like such cases, and admits that he cannot explain the facts in connection with the climatic varieties of certain butterflies, except "by supposing the passive acquisition of characters produced by the direct influence of climate." nevertheless, in his next paragraph but one he calls such cases "doubtful," and proposes that for the moment they should be left aside. he accordingly leaves them, but i have not yet found what other moment he considered auspicious for returning to them. he tells us that "new experiments will be necessary, and that he has himself already begun to undertake them." perhaps he will give us the results of these experiments in some future book--for that they will prove satisfactory to him can hardly, i think, be doubted. he writes:-"leaving on one side, for the moment, these doubtful and insufficiently investigated cases, we may still maintain that the assumption that changes induced by external conditions in the organism as a whole are communicated to the germ-cells after the manner indicated in darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis, is wholly unnecessary for the explanation of these phenomena. still we cannot exclude the possibility of such a transmission occasionally occurring, for even if the greater part of the effects must be attributable to natural selection, there might be a smaller part in certain cases which depends on this exceptional factor." i repeatedly tried to understand mr. darwin's theory of pangenesis, and so often failed that i long since gave the matter up in despair. i did so with the less unwillingness because i saw that no one else appeared to understand the theory, and that even mr. darwin's warmest adherents regarded it with disfavour. if mr. darwin means that every cell of the body throws off minute particles that find their way to the germ-cells, and hence into the new embryo, this is indeed difficult of comprehension and belief. if he means that the rhythms or vibrations that go on ceaselessly in every cell of the body communicate themselves with greater or less accuracy or perturbation, as the case may be, to the cells that go to form offspring, and that since the characteristics of matter are determined by vibrations, in communicating vibrations they in effect communicate matter, according to the view put forward in the last chapter of my book luck or cunning, then we can better understand it. i have nothing, however, to do with mr. darwin's theory of pangenesis beyond avoiding the pretence that i understand either the theory itself or what professor weismann says about it; all i am concerned with is professor weismann's admission, made immediately afterwards, that the somatic cells may, and perhaps sometimes do, impart characteristics to the germ-cells. "a complete and satisfactory refutation of such an opinion," he continues, "cannot be brought forward at present"; so i suppose we must wait a little longer, but in the meantime we may again remark that, if we admit even occasional communication of changes in the somatic cells to the germ-cells, we have let in the thin end of the wedge, as mr. darwin did when he said that use and disuse did a good deal towards modification. buffon, in his first volume on the lower animals, {288} dwells on the impossibility of stopping the breach once made by admission of variation at all. "if the point," he writes, "were once gained, that among animals and vegetables there had been, i do not say several species, but even a single one, which had been produced in the course of direct descent from another species; if, for example, it could be once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the horse--then there is no farther limit to be set to the power of nature, and we should not be wrong in supposing that with sufficient time she could have evolved all other organized forms from one primordial type." so with use and disuse and transmission of acquired characteristics generally--once show that a single structure or instinct is due to habit in preceding generations, and we can impose no limit on the results achievable by accumulation in this respect, nor shall we be wrong in conceiving it as possible that all specialization, whether of structure or instinct, may be due ultimately to habit. how far this can be shown to be probable is, of course, another matter, but i am not immediately concerned with this; all i am concerned with now is to show that the germ-cells not unfrequently become permanently affected by events that have made a profound impression upon the somatic cells, in so far that they transmit an obvious reminiscence of the impression to the embryos which they go subsequently towards forming. this is all that is necessary for my case, and i do not find that professor weismann, after all, disputes it. but here, again, comes the difficulty of saying what professor weismann does, and what he does not, dispute. one moment he gives all that is wanted for the lamarckian contention, the next he denies common sense the bare necessaries of life. for a more exhaustive and detailed criticism of professor weismann's position, i would refer the reader to an admirably clear article by mr. sidney h. vines, which appeared in nature, october 24, 1889. i can only say that while reading professor weismann's book, i feel as i do when i read those of mr. darwin, and of a good many other writers on biology whom i need not name. i become like a fly in a window-pane. i see the sunshine and freedom beyond, and buzz up and down their pages, ever hopeful to get through them to the fresh air without, but ever kept back by a mysterious something, which i feel but cannot either grasp or see. it was not thus when i read buffon, erasmus darwin, and lamarck; it is not thus when i read such articles as mr. vines's just referred to. love of self-display, and the want of singleness of mind that it inevitably engenders--these, i suppose, are the sins that glaze the casements of most men's minds; and from these, no matter how hard he tries to free himself, nor how much he despises them, who is altogether exempt? finally, then, when we consider the immense mass of evidence referred to briefly, but sufficiently, by mr. charles darwin, and referred to without other, for the most part, than off-hand dismissal by professor weismann in the last of the essays that have been recently translated, i do not see how anyone who brings an unbiased mind to the question can hesitate as to the side on which the weight of testimony inclines. professor weismann declares that "the transmission of mutilations may be dismissed into the domain of fable." {290} if so, then, whom can we trust? what is the use of science at all if the conclusions of a man as competent as i readily admit mr. darwin to have been, on the evidence laid before him from countless sources, is to be set aside lightly and without giving the clearest and most cogent explanation of the why and wherefore? when we see a person "ostrichizing" the evidence which he has to meet, as clearly as i believe professor weismann to be doing, we shall in nine cases out of ten be right in supposing that he knows the evidence to be too strong for him. the deadlock in darwinism: part iii now let me return to the recent division of biological opinion into two main streams--lamarckism and weismannism. both lamarckians and weismannists, not to mention mankind in general, admit that the better adapted to its surroundings a living form may be, the more likely it is to outbreed its compeers. the world at large, again, needs not to be told that the normal course is not unfrequently deflected through the fortunes of war; nevertheless, according to lamarckians and erasmus-darwinians, habitual effort, guided by evergrowing intelligence--that is to say, by continued increase of power in the matter of knowing our likes and dislikes--has been so much the main factor throughout the course of organic development, that the rest, though not lost sight of, may be allowed to go without saying. according, on the other hand, to extreme charles-darwinians and weismannists, habit, effort and intelligence acquired during the experience of any one life goes for nothing. not even a little fraction of it endures to the benefit of offspring. it dies with him in whom it is acquired, and the heirs of a man's body take no interest therein. to state this doctrine is to arouse instinctive loathing; it is my fortunate task to maintain that such a nightmare of waste and death is as baseless as it is repulsive. the split in biological opinion occasioned by the deadlock to which charles-darwinism has been reduced, though comparatively recent, widens rapidly. ten years ago lamarck's name was mentioned only as a byword for extravagance; now, we cannot take up a number of nature without seeing how hot the contention is between his followers and those of weismann. this must be referred, as i implied earlier, to growing perception that mr. darwin should either have gone farther towards lamarckism or not so far. in admitting use and disuse as freely as he did, he gave lamarckians leverage for the overthrow of a system based ostensibly on the accumulation of fortunate accidents. in assigning the lion's share of development to the accumulation of fortunate accidents, he tempted fortuitists to try to cut the ground from under lamarck's feet by denying that the effects of use and disuse can be inherited at all. when the public had once got to understand what lamarck had intended, and wherein mr. charles darwin had differed from him, it became impossible for charles-darwinians to remain where they were, nor is it easy to see what course was open to them except to cast about for a theory by which they could get rid of use and disuse altogether. weismannism, therefore, is the inevitable outcome of the straits to which charles-darwinians were reduced through the way in which their leader had halted between two opinions. this is why charles-darwinians, from professor huxley downwards, have kept the difference between lamarck's opinions and those of mr. darwin so much in the background. unwillingness to make this understood is nowhere manifested more clearly than in dr. francis darwin's life of his father. in this work lamarck is sneered at once or twice and told to go away, but there is no attempt to state the two cases side by side; from which, as from not a little else, i conclude that dr. francis darwin has descended from his father with singularly little modification. proceeding to the evidence for the transmissions of acquired habits, i will quote two recently adduced examples from among the many that have been credibly attested. the first was contributed to nature (march 14, 1889) by professor marcus m. hartog, who wrote:-"a. b. is moderately myopic and very astigmatic in the left eye; extremely myopic in the right. as the left eye gave such bad images for near objects, he was compelled in childhood to mask it, and acquired the habit of leaning his head on his left arm for writing, so as to blind that eye, or of resting the left temple and eye on the hand, with the elbow on the table. at the age of fifteen the eyes were equalized by the use of suitable spectacles, and he soon lost the habit completely and permanently. he is now the father of two children, a boy and a girl, whose vision (tested repeatedly and fully) is emmetropic in both eyes, so that they have not inherited the congenital optical defect of their father. all the same, they have both of them inherited his early acquired habit, and need constant watchfulness to prevent their hiding the left eye when writing, by resting the head on the left forearm or hand. imitation is here quite out of the question. "considering that every habit involves changes in the proportional development of the muscular and osseous systems, and hence probably of the nervous system also, the importance of inherited habits, natural or acquired, cannot be overlooked in the general theory of inheritance. i am fully aware that i shall be accused of flat lamarckism, but a nickname is not an argument." to this professor ray lankester rejoined (nature, march 21, 1889):-"it is not unusual for children to rest the head on the left forearm or hand when writing, and i doubt whether much value can be attached to the case described by professor hartog. the kind of observation which his letter suggests is, however, likely to lead to results either for or against the transmission of acquired characters. an old friend of mine lost his right arm when a schoolboy, and has ever since written with his left. he has a large family and grandchildren, but i have not heard of any of them showing a disposition to left-handedness." from nature (march 21, 1889) i take the second instance communicated by mr. j. jenner-weir, who wrote as follows:-"mr. marcus m. hartog's letter of march 6th, inserted in last week's number (p. 462), is a very valuable contribution to the growing evidence that acquired characters may be inherited. i have long held the view that such is often the case, and i have myself observed several instances of the, at least i may say, apparent fact. "many years ago there was a very fine male of the capra megaceros in the gardens of the zoological society. to restrain this animal from jumping over the fence of the enclosure in which he was confined, a long and heavy chain was attached to the collar round his neck. he was constantly in the habit of taking this chain up by his horns and moving it from one side to another over his back; in doing this he threw his head very much back, his horns being placed in a line with the back. the habit had become quite chronic with him, and was very tiresome to look at. i was very much astonished to observe that his offspring inherited the habit, and although it was not necessary to attach a chain to their necks, i have often seen a young male throwing his horns over his back and shifting from side to side an imaginary chain. the action was exactly the same as that of his ancestor. the case of the kid of this goat appears to me to be parallel to that of child and parent given by mr. hartog. i think at the time i made this observation i informed mr. darwin of the fact by letter, and he did not accuse me of 'flat lamarckism.'" to this letter there was no rejoinder. it may be said, of course, that the action of the offspring in each of these cases was due to accidental coincidence only. anything can be said, but the question turns not on what an advocate can say, but on what a reasonably intelligent and disinterested jury will believe; granted they might be mistaken in accepting the foregoing stories, but the world of science, like that of commerce, is based on the faith or confidence which both creates and sustains them. indeed the universe itself is but the creature of faith, for assuredly we know of no other foundation. there is nothing so generally and reasonably accepted-not even our own continued identity--but questions may be raised about it that will shortly prove unanswerable. we cannot so test every sixpence given us in change as to be sure that we never take a bad one, and had better sometimes be cheated than reduce caution to an absurdity. moreover, we have seen from the evidence given in my preceding article that the germ-cells issuing from a parent's body can, and do, respond to profound impressions made on the somatic cells. this being so, what impressions are more profound, what needs engage more assiduous attention than those connected with self-protection, the procuring of food, and the continuation of the species? if the mere anxiety connected with an ill-healing wound inflicted on but one generation is sometimes found to have so impressed the germ-cells that they hand down its scars to offspring, how much more shall not anxieties that have directed action of all kinds from birth till death, not in one generation only but in a longer series of generations than the mind can realize to itself, modify, and indeed control, the organization of every species? i see professor s. h. vines, in the article on weismann's theory referred to in my preceding article, says mr. darwin "held that it was not the sudden variations due to altered external conditions which become permanent, but those slowly produced by what he termed 'the accumulative action of changed conditions of life.'" nothing can be more soundly lamarckian, and nothing should more conclusively show that, whatever else mr. darwin was, he was not a charlesdarwinian; but what evidence other than inferential can from the nature of the case be adduced in support of this, as i believe, perfectly correct judgment? none know better than they who clamour for direct evidence that their master was right in taking the position assigned to him by professor vines, that they cannot reasonably look for it. with us, as with themselves, modification proceeds very gradually, and it violates our principles as much as their own to expect visible permanent progress, in any single generation, or indeed in any number of generations of wild species which we have yet had time to observe. occasionally we can find such cases, as in that of branchipus stagnalis, quoted by mr. wallace, or in that of the new zealand kea whose skin, i was assured by the late sir julius von haast, has already been modified as a consequence of its change of food. here we can show that in even a few generations structure is modified under changed conditions of existence, but as we believe these cases to occur comparatively rarely, so it is still more rarely that they occur when and where we can watch them. nature is eminently conservative, and fixity of type, even under considerable change of conditions, is surely more important for the well-being of any species than an over-ready power of adaptation to, it may be, passing changes. there could be no steady progress if each generation were not mainly bound by the traditions of those that have gone before it. it is evolution and not incessant revolution that both parties are upholding; and this being so, rapid visible modification must be the exception, not the rule. i have quoted direct evidence adduced by competent observers, which is, i believe, sufficient to establish the fact that offspring can be and is sometimes modified by the acquired habits of a progenitor. i will now proceed to the still more, as it appears to me, cogent proof afforded by general considerations. what, let me ask, are the principal phenomena of heredity? there must be physical continuity between parent, or parents, and offspring, so that the offspring is, as erasmus darwin well said, a kind of elongation of the life of the parent. erasmus darwin put the matter so well that i may as well give his words in full; he wrote:-"owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent, since a part of the embryon animal is, or was, a part of the parent, and therefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent system. "at the earliest period of its existence the embryon would seem to consist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation, sensation, volition, and association, and also with some acquired habits or propensities peculiar to the parent; the former of these are in common with other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or produce the kind of animal, whether man or quadruped, with the similarity of feature or form to the parent." {299} those who accept evolution insist on unbroken physical continuity between the earliest known life and ourselves, so that we both are and are not personally identical with the unicellular organism from which we have descended in the course of many millions of years, exactly in the same ways as an octogenarian both is and is not personally identical with the microscopic impregnate ovum from which he grew up. everything both is and is not. there is no such thing as strict identity between any two things in any two consecutive seconds. in strictness they are identical and yet not identical, so that in strictness they violate a fundamental rule of strictness-namely, that a thing shall never be itself and not itself at one and the same time; we must choose between logic and dealing in a practical spirit with time and space; it is not surprising, therefore, that logic, in spite of the show of respect outwardly paid to her, is told to stand aside when people come to practice. in practice identity is generally held to exist where continuity is only broken slowly and piecemeal; nevertheless, that occasional periods of even rapid change are not held to bar identity, appears from the fact that no one denies this to hold between the microscopically small impregnate ovum and the born child that springs from it, nor yet, therefore, between the impregnate ovum and the octogenarian into which the child grows; for both ovum and octogenarian are held personally identical with the new-born baby, and things that are identical with the same are identical with one another. the first, then, and most important element of heredity is that there should be unbroken continuity, and hence sameness of personality, between parents and offspring, in neither more nor less than the same sense as that in which any other two personalities are said to be the same. the repetition, therefore, of its developmental stages by any offspring must be regarded as something which the embryo repeating them has already done once, in the person of one or other parent; and if once, then, as many times as there have been generations between any given embryo now repeating it, and the point in life from which we started--say, for example, the amoeba. in the case of asexually and sexually produced organisms alike, the offspring must be held to continue the personality of the parent or parents, and hence on the occasion of every fresh development, to be repeating something which in the person of its parent or parents it has done once, and if once, then any number of times, already. it is obvious, therefore, that the germ-plasm (or whatever the fancy word for it may be) of any one generation is as physically identical with the germ-plasm of its predecessor as any two things can be. the difference between professor weismann and, we will say, heringians consists in the fact that the first maintains the new germ-plasm when on the point of repeating its developmental processes to take practically no cognisance of anything that has happened to it since the last occasion on which it developed itself; while the latter maintain that offspring takes much the same kind of account of what has happened to it in the persons of its parents since the last occasion on which it developed itself, as people in ordinary life take things that happen to them. in daily life people let fairly normal circumstances come and go without much heed as matters of course. if they have been lucky they make a note of it and try to repeat their success. if they have been unfortunate but have recovered rapidly they soon forget it; if they have suffered long and deeply they grizzle over it and are scared and scarred by it for a long time. the question is one of cognisance or noncognisance on the part of the new germs, of the more profound impressions made on them while they were one with their parents, between the occasion of their last preceding development and the new course on which they are about to enter. those who accept the theory put forward independently by professor hering of prague (whose work on this subject is translated in my book unconscious memory) and by myself in life and habit, believe in cognisance as do lamarckians generally. weismannites, and with them the orthodoxy of english science, find non-cognisance more acceptable. if the heringian view is accepted, that heredity is only a mode of memory, and an extension of memory from one generation to another, then the repetition of its development by any embryo thus becomes only the repetition of a lesson learned by rote; and, as i have elsewhere said, our view of life is simplified by finding that it is no longer an equation of, say, a hundred unknown quantities, but of ninety-nine only, inasmuch as two of the unknown quantities prove to be substantially identical. in this case the inheritance of acquired characteristics cannot be disputed, for it is postulated in the theory that each embryo takes note of, remembers and is guided by the profounder impressions made upon it while in the persons of its parents, between its present and last preceding development. to maintain this is to maintain use and disuse to be the main factors throughout organic development; to deny it is to deny that use and disuse can have any conceivable effect. for the detailed reasons which led me to my own conclusions i must refer the reader to my books life and habit and unconscious memory, the conclusions of which have been often adopted, but never, that i have seen, disputed. a brief resume of the leading points in the argument is all that space will here allow me to give. we have seen that it is a first requirement of heredity that there shall be physical continuity between parents and offspring. this holds good with memory. there must be continued identity between the person remembering and the person to whom the thing that is remembered happened. we cannot remember things that happened to someone else, and in our absence. we can only remember having heard of them. we have seen, however, that there is as much bona-fide sameness of personality between parents and offspring up to the time at which the offspring quits the parent's body, as there is between the different states of the parent himself at any two consecutive moments; the offspring therefore, being one and the same person with its progenitors until it quits them, can be held to remember what happened to them within, of course, the limitations to which all memory is subject, as much as the progenitors can remember what happened earlier to themselves. whether it does so remember can only be settled by observing whether it acts as living beings commonly do when they are acting under guidance of memory. i will endeavour to show that, though heredity and habit based on memory go about in different dresses, yet if we catch them separately--for they are never seen together--and strip them there is not a mole nor strawberry-mark nor trick nor leer of the one, but we find it in the other also. what are the moles and strawberry-marks of habitual action, or actions remembered and thus repeated? first, the more often we repeat them the more easily and unconsciously we do them. look at reading, writing, walking, talking, playing the piano, etc.; the longer we have practised any one of these acquired habits, the more easily, automatically and unconsciously, we perform it. look, on the other hand, broadly, at the three points to which i called attention in life and habit:-i. that we are most conscious of and have most control over such habits as speech, the upright position, the arts and sciences--which are acquisitions peculiar to the human race, always acquired after birth, and not common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not become entirely human. ii. that we are less conscious of and have less control over eating and drinking [provided the food be normal], swallowing, breathing, seeing, and hearing--which were acquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for which we had provided ourselves with all the necessary apparatus before we saw light, but which are still, geologically speaking, recent. iii. that we are most unconscious of and have least control over our digestion and circulation--powers possessed even by our invertebrate ancestry, and, geologically speaking, of extreme antiquity. i have put the foregoing very broadly, but enough is given to show the reader the gist of the argument. let it be noted that disturbance and departure, to any serious extent, from normal practice tends to induce resumption of consciousness even in the case of such old habits as breathing, seeing, and hearing, digestion and the circulation of the blood. so it is with habitual actions in general. let a player be never so proficient on any instrument, he will be put out if the normal conditions under which he plays are too widely departed from, and will then do consciously, if indeed he can do it at all, what he had hitherto been doing unconsciously. it is an axiom as regards actions acquired after birth, that we never do them automatically save as the result of long practice; the stages in the case of any acquired facility, the inception of which we have been able to watch, have invariably been from a nothingness of ignorant impotence to a little somethingness of highly selfconscious, arduous performance, and thence to the unselfconsciousness of easy mastery. i saw one year a poor blind lad of about eighteen sitting on a wall by the wayside at varese, playing the concertina with his whole body, and snorting like a child. the next year the boy no longer snorted, and he played with his fingers only; the year after that he seemed hardly to know whether he was playing or not, it came so easily to him. i know no exception to this rule. where is the intricate and at one time difficult art in which perfect automatic ease has been reached except as the result of long practice? if, then, wherever we can trace the development of automatism we find it to have taken this course, is it not most reasonable to infer that it has taken the same even when it has risen in regions that are beyond our ken? ought we not, whenever we see a difficult action performed automatically, to suspect antecedent practice? granted that without the considerations in regard to identity presented above it would not have been easy to see where a baby of a day old could have had the practice which enables it to do as much as it does unconsciously, but even without these considerations it would have been more easy to suppose that the necessary opportunities had not been wanting, than that the easy performance could have been gained without practice and memory. when i wrote life and habit (originally published in 1877) i said in slightly different words:-"shall we say that a baby of a day old sucks (which involves the whole principle of the pump and hence a profound practical knowledge of the laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenizes its blood--millions of years before anyone had discovered oxygen--sees and hears, operations that involve an unconscious knowledge of the facts concerning optics and acoustics compared with which the conscious discoveries of newton are insignificant--shall we say that a baby can do all these things at once, doing them so well and so regularly without being even able to give them attention, and yet without mistake, and shall we also say at the same time that it has not learnt to do them, and never did them before? "such an assertion would contradict the whole experience of mankind." i have met with nothing during the thirteen years since the foregoing was published that has given me any qualms about its soundness. from the point of view of the law courts and everyday life it is, of course, nonsense; but in the kingdom of thought, as in that of heaven, there are many mansions, and what would be extravagance in the cottage or farm-house, as it were, of daily practice, is but common decency in the palace of high philosophy, wherein dwells evolution. if we leave evolution alone, we may stick to common practice and the law courts; touch evolution and we are in another world; not higher, nor lower, but different as harmony from counterpoint. as, however, in the most absolute counterpoint there is still harmony, and in the most absolute harmony still counterpoint, so high philosophy should be still in touch with common sense, and common sense with high philosophy. the common-sense view of the matter to people who are not overcurious and to whom time is money, will be that a baby is not a baby until it is born, and that when born it should be born in wedlock. nevertheless, as a sop to high philosophy, every baby is allowed to be the offspring of its father and mother. the high-philosophy view of the matter is that every human being is still but a fresh edition of the primordial cell with the latest additions and corrections; there has been no leap nor break in continuity anywhere; the man of to-day is the primordial cell of millions of years ago as truly as he is the himself of yesterday; he can only be denied to be the one on grounds that will prove him not to be the other. everyone is both himself and all his direct ancestors and descendants as well; therefore, if we would be logical, he is one also with all his cousins, no matter how distant, for he and they are alike identical with the primordial cell, and we have already noted it as an axiom that things which are identical with the same are identical with one another. this is practically making him one with all living things, whether animal or vegetable, that ever have existed or ever will--something of all which may have been in the mind of sophocles when he wrote:-"nor seest thou yet the gathering hosts of ill that shall en-one thee both with thine own self and with thine offspring." and all this has come of admitting that a man may be the same person for two days running! as for sopping common sense it will be enough to say that these remarks are to be taken in a strictly scientific sense, and have no appreciable importance as regards life and conduct. true they deal with the foundations on which all life and conduct are based, but like other foundations they are hidden out of sight, and the sounder they are, the less we trouble ourselves about them. what other main common features between heredity and memory may we note besides the fact that neither can exist without that kind of physical continuity which we call personal identity? first, the development of the embryo proceeds in an established order; so must all habitual actions based on memory. disturb the normal order and the performance is arrested. the better we know "god save the queen," the less easily can we play or sing it backwards. the return of memory again depends on the return of ideas associated with the particular thing that is remembered--we remember nothing but for the presence of these, and when enough of these are presented to us we remember everything. so, if the development of an embryo is due to memory, we should suppose the memory of the impregnate ovum to revert not to yesterday, when it was in the persons of its parents, but to the last occasion on which it was an impregnate ovum. the return of the old environment and the presence of old associations would at once involve recollection of the course that should be next taken, and the same should happen throughout the whole course of development. the actual course of development presents precisely the phenomena agreeable with this. for fuller treatment of this point i must refer the reader to the chapter on the abeyance of memory in my book life and habit, already referred to. secondly, we remember best our last few performances of any given kind, so our present performance will probably resemble some one or other of these; we remember our earlier performances by way of residuum only, but every now and then we revert to an earlier habit. this feature of memory is manifested in heredity by the way in which offspring commonly resembles most its nearer ancestors, but sometimes reverts to earlier ones. brothers and sisters, each as it were giving their own version of the same story, but in different words, should generally resemble each other more closely than more distant relations. and this is what actually we find. thirdly, the introduction of slightly new elements into a method already established varies it beneficially; the new is soon fused with the old, and the monotony ceases to be oppressive. but if the new be too foreign, we cannot fuse the old and the new--nature seeming to hate equally too wide a deviation from ordinary practice and none at all. this fact reappears in heredity as the beneficial effects of occasional crossing on the one hand, and on the other, in the generally observed sterility of hybrids. if heredity be an affair of memory, how can an embryo, say of a mule, be expected to build up a mule on the strength of but two mule-memories? hybridism causes a fault in the chain of memory, and it is to this cause that the usual sterility of hybrids must be referred. fourthly, it requires many repeated impressions to fix a method firmly, but when it has been engrained into us we cease to have much recollection of the manner in which it came to be so, or indeed of any individual repetition, but sometimes a single impression if prolonged as well as profound, produces a lasting impression and is liable to return with sudden force, and then to go on returning to us at intervals. as a general rule, however, abnormal impressions cannot long hold their own against the overwhelming preponderance of normal authority. this appears in heredity as the normal noninheritance of mutilations on the one hand, and on the other as their occasional inheritance in the case of injuries followed by disease. fifthly, if heredity and memory are essentially the same, we should expect that no animal would develop new structures of importance after the age at which its species begins ordinarily to continue its race; for we cannot suppose offspring to remember anything that happens to the parent subsequently to the parent's ceasing to contain the offspring within itself. from the average age, therefore, of reproduction, offspring should cease to have any further steady, continuous memory to fall back upon; what memory there is should be full of faults, and as such unreliable. an organism ought to develop as long as it is backed by memory--that is to say, until the average age at which reproduction begins; it should then continue to go for a time on the impetus already received, and should eventually decay through failure of any memory to support it, and tell it what to do. this corresponds absolutely with what we observe in organisms generally, and explains, on the one hand, why the age of puberty marks the beginning of completed development--a riddle hitherto not only unexplained but, so far as i have seen, unasked; it explains, on the other hand, the phenomena of old age--hitherto without even attempt at explanation. sixthly, those organisms that are the longest in reaching maturity should on the average be the longest-lived, for they will have received the most momentous impulse from the weight of memory behind them. this harmonizes with the latest opinion as to the facts. in his article of weismann in the contemporary review for may, 1890, mr. romanes writes: "professor weismann has shown that there is throughout the metazoa a general correlation between the natural lifetime of individuals composing any given species, and the age at which they reach maturity or first become capable of procreation." this, i believe, has been the conclusion generally arrived at by biologists for some years past. lateness, then, in the average age of reproduction appears to be the principle underlying longevity. there does not appear at first sight to be much connection between such distinct and apparently disconnected phenomena as 1, the orderly normal progress of development; 2, atavism and the resumption of feral characteristics; 3, the more ordinary resemblance inter se of nearer relatives; 4, the benefit of an occasional cross, and the usual sterility of hybrids; 5, the unconsciousness with which alike bodily development and ordinary physiological functions proceed, so long as they are normal; 6, the ordinary non-inheritance, but occasional inheritance of mutilations; 7, the fact that puberty indicates the approach of maturity; 8, the phenomena of middle life and old age; 9, the principle underlying longevity. these phenomena have no conceivable bearing on one another until heredity and memory are regarded as part of the same story. identify these two things, and i know no phenomenon of heredity that does not immediately become infinitely more intelligible. is it conceivable that a theory which harmonizes so many facts hitherto regarded as without either connection or explanation should not deserve at any rate consideration from those who profess to take an interest in biology? it is not as though the theory were unknown, or had been condemned by our leading men of science. professor ray lankester introduced it to english readers in an appreciative notice of professor hering's address, which appeared in nature, july 13, 1876. he wrote to the athenaeum, march 24, 1884, and claimed credit for having done so, but i do not believe he has ever said more in public about it than what i have here referred to. mr. romanes did indeed try to crush it in nature, january 27,1881, but in 1883, in his mental evolution in animals, he adopted its main conclusion without acknowledgment. the athenaeum, to my unbounded surprise, called him to task for this (march 1, 1884), and since that time he has given the heringian theory a sufficiently wide berth. mr. wallace showed himself favourably enough disposed towards the view that heredity and memory are part of the same story when he reviewed my book life and habit in nature, march 27, 1879, but he has never since betrayed any sign of being aware that such a theory existed. mr. herbert spencer wrote to the athenaeum (april 5, 1884), and claimed the theory for himself, but, in spite of his doing this, he has never, that i have seen, referred to the matter again. i have dealt sufficiently with his claim in my book luck or cunning. lastly, professor hering himself has never that i know of touched his own theory since the single short address read in 1870, and translated by me in 1881. everyone, even its originator, except myself, seems afraid to open his mouth about it. of course the inference suggests itself that other people have more sense than i have. i readily admit it; but why have so many of our leaders shown such a strong hankering after the theory, if there is nothing in it? the deadlock that i have pointed out as existing in darwinism will, i doubt not, lead ere long to a consideration of professor hering's theory. english biologists are little likely to find weismann satisfactory for long, and if he breaks down there is nothing left for them but lamarck, supplemented by the important and elucidatory corollary on his theory proposed by professor hering. when the time arrives for this to obtain a hearing it will be confirmed, doubtless, by arguments clearer and more forcible than any i have been able to adduce; i shall then be delighted to resign the championship which till then i shall continue, as for some years past, to have much pleasure in sustaining. heretofore my satisfaction has mainly lain in the fact that more of our prominent men of science have seemed anxious to claim the theory than to refute it; in the confidence thus engendered i leave it to any fuller consideration which the outline i have above given may incline the reader to bestow upon it. footnotes: {19} i am indebted to one of butler's contemporaries at cambridge, the rev dr. t. g. bonney, f.r.s., and also to mr. john f. harris, both of st. john's college, for help in finding and dating butler's youthful contributions to the eagle. {20} this gentleman, on the death of his father in 1866, became the rev. sir philip perring, bart. {22} the late sir julius von haast, k.c.m.g., appointed provincial geologist in 1860, was ennobled by the austrian government and knighted by the british. he died in 1887. {59} a lecture delivered at the working men's college, great ormond street, 30th january, 1892. {99} published in the universal review, july, 1888. {110} published in the universal review, december, 1890. {127} published in the universal review, may, 1889. as i have several times been asked if the letters here reprinted were not fabricated by butler himself, i take this opportunity of stating that they are authentic in every particular, and that the originals are now in my possession.--r. a. s. {142} an address delivered at the somerville club, february 27th, 1895. {150} the foundations of belief, by the right hon. a. j. balfour. longmans, 1895, p. 48. {153a} published in the universal review, november, 1888. {153b} since this essay was written it has been ascertained by cavaliere francesco negri, of casale monferrato, that tabachetti died in 1615. if, therefore, the sanctuary of montrigone was not founded until 1631, it is plain that tabachetti cannot have worked there. all the latest discoveries about tabachetti's career will be found in cavaliere negri's pamphlet il santuario di crea (alessandria, 1902). see also note on p. 195.--r. a. s. {166} published in the universal review, december, 1889. {188} published in the universal review, november, 1890. {190} m. ruppen's words run: "1687 wurde die kapelle zur hohen stiege gebaut, 1747 durch zusatz vergrossert und 1755 mit orgeln ausgestattet. anton ruppen, ein geschickter steinhauer und maurermeister leitete den kapellebau, und machte darin das kleinere altarlein. bei der hohen stiege war fruher kein gebetshauslein; nur ein wunderthatiges bildlein der mutter gottes stand da in einer mauer vor dem fromme hirten und viel andachtiges volk unter freiem himmel beteten. "1709 wurden die kleinen kapellelein die 15 geheimnisse des psalters vorstellend auf dem wege zur hohen stiege gebaut. jeder haushalter des viertels fee ubernahm den bau eines dieser geheimnisskapellen, und ein besonderer gutthater dieser frommen unternehmung war heinrich andenmatten, nachhet bruder der gesellschaft jesu." {195} the story of tabachetti's insanity and imprisonment is very doubtful, and it is difficult to make his supposed visit to saas fit in with the authentic facts of his life. cavaliere negri, to whose pamphlet on tabachetti i have already referred the reader, mentions neither. tabachetti left his native dinant in 1585, and from that date until his death he appears to have lived chiefly at varallo and crea. in 1588 he was working at crea; in 1590 he was at varallo and again in 1594, 1599, and 1602. he died in 1615, possibly during a visit to varallo, though his home at the time was at costigliole, near asti.--r. a. s. {196} this is thus chronicled by m. ruppen: "1589 den 9 september war eine wassergrosse, die viel schaden verursachte. die thalstrasse, die von den steinmatten an bis zur kirche am ufer der visp lag, wurde ganz zerstort. man ward gezwungen eine neue strasse in einiger entfernung vom wasser durch einen alten fussweg auszuhauen welche vier und einerhalben viertel der klafter, oder 6 schuh und 9 zoll breit sollte" (p. 43). {209} a lecture delivered at the working men's college in great ormond street, march 15th, 1890; rewritten and delivered again at the somerville club, february 13th, 1894. {210} correlation of forces, longmans, 1874, p. 15. {230} three lectures on the science of language, longmans, 1889, p. 4. {234} science of thought, longmans, 1887, p. 9. {245} published in the universal review, april, may, and june, 1890. {259a} voyages of the "adventure" and "beagle," iii. p. 237. {259b} luck or cunning, pp. 170, 180. {260} journals of the proceedings of the linnean society (zoology, vol. iii.), 1859, p. 62. {261} darwinism (macmillan, 1889), p. 129. {263} see nature, march 6, 1890. {265} origin of species, sixth edition, 1888, vol. i. p. 168. {266} origin of species, sixth edition, 1888, vol. ii. p. 261. {271} mr. j. t. cunningham, of the marine biological laboratory, plymouth, has called my attention to the fact that i have ascribed to professor ray lankester a criticism on mr. wallace's remarks upon the eyes of certain flat-fish, which professor ray lankester was, in reality, only adopting--with full acknowledgment--from mr. cunningham. mr. cunningham has left it to me whether to correct my omission publicly or not, but he would so plainly prefer my doing so that i consider myself bound to insert this note. curiously enough, i find that in my book evolution, old and new i gave what lamarck actually said upon the eyes of flat-fish, and, having been led to return to the subject, i may as well quote his words. he wrote:-"need--always occasioned by the circumstances in which an animal is placed, and followed by sustained efforts at gratification--can not only modify an organ--that is to say, augment or reduce it--but can change its position when the case requires its removal. "ocean fishes have occasion to see what is on either side of them, and have their eyes accordingly placed on either side of their head. some fishes, however, have their abode near coasts on submarine banks and inclinations, and are thus forced to flatten themselves as much as possible in order to get as near as they can to the shore. in this situation they receive more light from above than from below, and find it necessary to pay attention to whatever happens to be above them; this need has involved the displacement of their eyes, which now take the remarkable position which we observe in the case of soles, turbots, plaice, etc. the transfer of position is not even yet complete in the case of these fishes, and the eyes are not, therefore, symmetrically placed; but they are so with the skate, whose head and whole body are equally disposed on either side a longitudinal section. hence the eyes of this fish are placed symmetrically upon the uppermost side."--philosophie zoologique, tom. i. pp. 250, 251. edition c. martins. paris, 1873. {274a} essays on heredity, etc., oxford, 1889, p. 171. {274b} ibid., p. 266. {275} darwinism, 1889, p. 440. {277} page 83. {279} vol. i. p. 466, etc. ed. 1885. {286} darwinism, p. 440. {288} tom. iv. p. 383. ed. 1753. {290} essays, etc., p. 447. {299} zoonomia, 1794, vol. i. p. 480. homer and his age by andrew lang [illustration: algonquins under shield _frontispiece_] to r. w. raper in all gratitude [etext editor's note: due to unclear typesetting of the original work, which contains unidentifiable characters and blank spaces, it has not been possible to capture this text completely. where we have been unable to recover the meaning of the text, this has been indicated by the annotation [sic] or [blank space]. we hope that in the future a complete edition can be found and these gaps can be filled.] preface in _homer and the epic_, ten or twelve years ago, i examined the literary objections to homeric unity. these objections are chiefly based on alleged discrepancies in the narrative, of which no one poet, it is supposed, could have been guilty. the critics repose, i venture to think, mainly on a fallacy. we may style it the fallacy of "the analytical reader." the poet is expected to satisfy a minutely critical reader, a personage whom he could not foresee, and whom he did not address. nor are "contradictory instances" examined--that is, as blass has recently reminded his countrymen, homer is put to a test which goethe could not endure. no long fictitious narrative can satisfy "the analytical reader." the fallacy is that of disregarding the homeric poet's audience. he did not sing for aristotle or for aristarchus, or for modern minute and reflective inquirers, but for warriors and ladies. he certainly satisfied them; but if he does not satisfy microscopic professors, he is described as a syndicate of many minstrels, living in many ages. in the present volume little is said in defence of the poet's consistency. several chapters on that point have been excised. the way of living which homer describes is examined, and an effort is made to prove that he depicts the life of a single brief age of culture. the investigation is compelled to a tedious minuteness, because the points of attack--the alleged discrepancies in descriptions of the various details of existence--are so minute as to be all but invisible. the unity of the epics is not so important a topic as the methods of criticism. they ought to be sober, logical, and self-consistent. when these qualities are absent, homeric criticism may be described, in the recent words of blass, as "a swamp haunted by wandering fires, will o' the wisps." in our country many of the most eminent scholars are no believers in separatist criticism. justly admiring the industry and erudition of the separatists, they are unmoved by their arguments, to which they do not reply, being convinced in their own minds. but the number and perseverance of the separatists make on "the general reader" the impression that homeric unity is chose _jugée_, that _scientia locuta est_, and has condemned homer. this is far from being the case: the question is still open; "science" herself is subject to criticism; and new materials, accruing yearly, forbid a tame acquiescence in hasty theories. may i say a word to the lovers of poetry who, in reading homer, feel no more doubt than in reading milton that, on the whole, they are studying a work of one age, by one author? do not let them be driven from their natural impression by the statement that science has decided against them. the certainties of the exact sciences are one thing: the opinions of homeric commentators are other and very different things. among all the branches of knowledge which the homeric critic should have at his command, only philology, archaeology, and anthropology can be called "sciences"; and they are not exact sciences: they are but skirmishing advances towards the true solution of problems prehistoric and "proto-historic." our knowledge shifts from day to day; on every hand, in regard to almost every topic discussed, we find conflict of opinions. there is no certain scientific decision, but there is the possibility of working in the scientific spirit, with breadth of comparison; consistency of logic; economy of conjecture; abstinence from the piling of hypothesis on hypothesis. nothing can be more hurtful to science than the dogmatic assumption that the hypothesis most in fashion is scientific. twenty years ago, the philological theory of the solar myth was preached as "scientific" in the books, primers, and lectures of popular science. to-day its place knows it no more. the separatist theories of the homeric poems are not more secure than the solar myth, "like a wave shall they pass and be passed." when writing on "the homeric house" (chapter x.) i was unacquainted with mr. percy gardner's essay, "the palaces of homer" (_journal of hellenic studies_, vol. iii. pp. 264-282). mr. gardner says that dasent's plan of the scandinavian hall "offers in most respects not likeness, but a striking contrast to the early greek hall." mr. monro, who was not aware of the parallel which i had drawn between the homeric and icelandic houses, accepted it on evidence more recent than that of sir george dasent. cf. his _odyssey_, vol. ii. pp. 490-494. mr. r. w. raper, of trinity college, oxford, has read the proof sheets of this work with his habitual kindness, but is in no way responsible for the arguments. mr. walter leaf has also obliged me by mentioning some points as to which i had not completely understood his position, and i have tried as far as possible to represent his ideas correctly. i have also received assistance from the wide and minute homeric lore of mr. a. shewan, of st. andrews, and have been allowed to consult other scholars on various points. the first portion of the chapter on "bronze and iron" appeared in the revue _archéologique_ for april 1905, and the editor, monsieur salomon reinach, obliged me with a note on the bad iron swords of the celts as described by polybius. the design of men in three shields of different shapes, from a dipylon vase, is reproduced, with permission, from the british museum _guide to the antiquities of the iron age_; and the shielded chessmen from catalogue of scottish society of antiquaries. thanks for the two ships with men under shield are offered to the rev. mr. browne, s.j., author of _handbook of homeric studies_ (longmans). for the mycenaean gold corslet i thank mr. john murray (schliemann's mycenae and tiryns), and for all the other mycenaean illustrations messrs. macmillan and mr. leaf, publishers and author of mr. leaf's edition of the _iliad_. contents: chapter i: the homeric age chapter ii: hypotheses as to the growth of the epics chapter iii: hypotheses of epic composition chapter iv: loose feudalism: the over-lord in "iliad," books i. and ii. chapter v: agamemnon in the later "iliad" chapter vi: archaeology of the "iliad"--burial and cremation chapter vii: homeric armour chapter viii: the breastplate chapter ix: bronze and iron chapter x: the homeric house chapter xi: notes of change in the "odyssey" chapter xii: linguistic proofs of various dates chapter xiii: the "doloneia"--"iliad," book x. chapter xiv: the interpolations of nestor chapter xv: the comparative study of early epics chapter xvi: homer and the french mediaeval epics chapter xvii: conclusion list of illustrations: algonquins under shield the vase of aristonothos dagger with lion-hunters rings: swords and shields fragments of warrior vase fragment of siege vase algonquin corslet gold corslet chapter i the homeric age the aim of this book is to prove that the homeric epics, as wholes, and apart from passages gravely suspected in antiquity, present a perfectly harmonious picture of the entire life and civilisation of one single age. the faint variations in the design are not greater than such as mark every moment of culture, for in all there is some movement; in all, cases are modified by circumstances. if our contention be true, it will follow that the poems themselves, as wholes, are the product of a single age, not a mosaic of the work of several changeful centuries. this must be the case--if the life drawn is harmonious, the picture must be the work of a single epoch--for it is not in the nature of early uncritical times that later poets should adhere, or even try to adhere, to the minute details of law, custom, opinion, dress, weapons, houses, and so on, as presented in earlier lays or sagas on the same set of subjects. even less are poets in uncritical times inclined to "archaise," either by attempting to draw fancy pictures of the manners of the past, or by making researches in graves, or among old votive offerings in temples, for the purpose of "preserving local colour." the idea of such archaising is peculiar to modern times. to take an instance much to the point, virgil was a learned poet, famous for his antiquarian erudition, and professedly imitating and borrowing from homer. now, had virgil worked as a man of to-day would work on a poem of trojan times, he would have represented his heroes as using weapons of bronze. [footnote: looking back at my own poem, _helen of troy_ (1883), i find that when the metal of a weapon is mentioned the metal is bronze.] no such idea of archaising occurred to the learned virgil. it is "the iron" that pierces the head of remulus (_aeneid_, ix. 633); it is "the iron" that waxes warm in the breast of antiphates (ix. 701). virgil's men, again, do not wear the great homeric shield, suspended by a baldric: aeneas holds up his buckler (_clipeus_), borne "on his left arm" (x. 26 i). homer, familiar with no buckler worn on the left arm, has no such description. when the hostile ranks are to be broken, in the _aeneid_ it is "with the iron" (x. 372), and so throughout. the most erudite ancient poet, in a critical age of iron, does not archaise in our modern fashion. he does not follow his model, homer, in his descriptions of shields, swords, and spears. but, according to most homeric critics, the later continuators of the greek epics, about 800-540 b.c., are men living in an age of iron weapons, and of round bucklers worn on the left arm. yet, unlike virgil, they always give their heroes arms of bronze, and, unlike virgil (as we shall see), they do not introduce the buckler worn on the left arm. they adhere conscientiously to the use of the vast mycenaean shield, in their time obsolete. yet, by the theory, in many other respects they innovate at will, introducing corslets and greaves, said to be unknown to the beginners of the greek epics, just as virgil innovates in bucklers and iron weapons. all this theory seems inconsistent, and no ancient poet, not even virgil, is an archaiser of the modern sort. all attempts to prove that the homeric poems are the work of several centuries appear to rest on a double hypothesis: first, that the later contributors to the _iliad_ kept a steady eye on the traditions of the remote achaean age of bronze; next, that they innovated as much as they pleased. poets of an uncritical age do not archaise. this rule is overlooked by the critics who represent the homeric poems as a complex of the work of many singers in many ages. for example, professor percy gardner, in his very interesting _new chapters in greek history_ (1892), carries neglect of the rule so far as to suppose that the late homeric poets, being aware that the ancient heroes could not ride, or write, or eat boiled meat, consciously and purposefully represented them as doing none of these things. this they did "on the same principle on which a writer of pastoral idylls in our own day would avoid the mention of the telegraph or telephone." [footnote: _op. cit._, p. 142.] "a writer of our own day,"--there is the pervading fallacy! it is only writers of the last century who practise this archaeological refinement. the authors of _beowulf_ and the _nibelungenlied_, of the chansons de _geste_ and of the arthurian romances, always describe their antique heroes and the details of their life in conformity with the customs, costume, and armour of their own much later ages. but mr. leaf, to take another instance, remarks as to the lack of the metal lead in the epics, that it is mentioned in similes only, as though the poet were aware the metal was unknown in the heroic age. [footnote: _iliad_, note on, xi. 237.] here the poet is assumed to be a careful but ill-informed archaeologist, who wishes to give an accurate representation of the past. lead, in fact, was perfectly familiar to the mycenaean prime. [footnote: tsountas and manatt, p. 73.] the critical usage of supposing that the ancients were like the most recent moderns--in their archaeological preoccupations--is a survival of the uncritical habit which invariably beset old poets and artists. ancient poets, of the uncritical ages, never worked "on the same principle as a writer in our day," as regards archaeological precision; at least we are acquainted with no example of such accuracy. let us take another instance of the critical fallacy. the age of the achaean warriors, who dwelt in the glorious halls of mycenae, was followed, at an interval, by the age represented in the relics found in the older tombs outside the dipylon gate of athens, an age beginning, probably, about 900-850 b.c. the culture of this "dipylon age," a time of geometrical ornaments on vases, and of human figures drawn in geometrical forms, lines, and triangles, was quite unlike that of the achaean age in many ways, for example, in mode of burial and in the use of iron for weapons. mr. h. r. hall, in his learned book, _the oldest civilisation of greece_ (1901), supposes the culture described in the homeric poems to be contemporary in asia with that of this dipylon period in greece. [footnote: op. cit., pp. 49, 222.] he says, "the homeric culture is evidently the culture of the poet's own days; there is no attempt to archaise here...." they do not archaise as to the details of life, but "the homeric poets consciously and consistently archaised, in regard to the political conditions of continental greece," in the achaean times. they give "in all probability a pretty accurate description" of the loose feudalism of mycenaean greece. [footnote: op. cit., pp. 223, 225.] we shall later show that this homeric picture of a past political and social condition of greece is of vivid and delicate accuracy, that it is drawn from the life, not constructed out of historical materials. mr. hall explains the fact by "the conscious and consistent" archaeological precision of the asiatic poets of the ninth century. now to any one who knows early national poetry, early uncritical art of any kind, this theory seems not easily tenable. the difficulty of the theory is increased, if we suppose that the achaeans were the recent conquerors of the mycenaeans. whether we regard the achaeans as "celts," with mr. ridgeway, victors over an aryan people, the pelasgic mycenaeans; or whether, with mr. hall, we think that the achaeans were the aryan conquerors of a non-aryan people, the makers of the mycenaean civilisation; in the stress of a conquest, followed at no long interval by an expulsion at the hands of dorian invaders, there would be little thought of archaising among achaean poets. [footnote: mr. hall informs me that he no longer holds the opinion that the poets archaised.] a distinction has been made, it is true, between the poet and other artists in this respect. monsieur perrot says, "the vase-painter reproduces what he sees; while the epic poets endeavoured to represent a distant past. if homer gives swords of bronze to his heroes of times gone by, it is because he knows that such were the weapons of these heroes of long ago. in arming them with bronze he makes use, in his way, of what we call 'local colour....' thus the homeric poet is a more conscientious historian than virgil!" [footnote: la _grète de l'epopée_, perrot et chipiez, p. 230.] now we contend that old uncritical poets no more sought for antique "local colour" than any other artists did. m. perrot himself says with truth, "the _chanson de roland_, and all the _gestes_ of the same cycle explain for us the iliad and the odyssey." [footnote: op. cit., p. 5.] but the poet of the _chanson de roland_ accoutres his heroes of old time in the costume and armour of his own age, and the later poets of the same cycle introduce the innovations of their time; they do not hunt for "local colour" in the _chanson de roland_. the very words "local colour" are a modern phrase for an idea that never occurred to the artists of ancient uncritical ages. the homeric poets, like the painters of the dipylon period, describe the details of life as they see them with their own eyes. such poets and artists never have the fear of "anachronisms" before them. this, indeed, is plain to the critics themselves, for they, detect anachronisms as to land tenure, burial, the construction of houses, marriage customs, weapons, and armour in the _iliad_ and _odyssey_. these supposed anachronisms we examine later: if they really exist they show that the poets were indifferent to local colour and archaeological precision, or were incapable of attaining to archaeological accuracy. in fact, such artistic revival of the past in its habit as it lived is a purely modern ideal. we are to show, then, that the epics, being, as wholes, free from such inevitable modifications in the picture of changing details of life as uncritical authors always introduce, are the work of the one age which they represent. this is the reverse of what has long been, and still is, the current theory of homeric criticism, according to which the homeric poems are, and bear manifest marks of being, a mosaic of the poetry of several ages of change. till wolf published his _prolegomena_ to [blank space] (1795) there was little opposition to the old belief that the _iliad_ and odyssey were, allowing for interpolations, the work of one, or at most of two, poets. after the appearance of wolfs celebrated book, homeric critics have maintained, generally speaking, that the _iliad_ is either a collection of short lays disposed in sequence in a late age, or that it contains an ancient original "kernel" round which "expansions," made throughout some centuries of changeful life, have accrued, and have been at last arranged by a literary redactor or editor. the latter theory is now dominant. it is maintained that the _iliad_ is a work of at least four centuries. some of the objections to this theory were obvious to wolf himself--more obvious to him than to his followers. he was aware, and some of them are not, of the distinction between reading the _iliad_ as all poetic literature is naturally read, and by all authors is meant to be read, for human pleasure, and studying it in the spirit of "the analytical reader." as often as he read for pleasure, he says, disregarding the purely fanciful "historical conditions" which he invented for homer; as often as he yielded himself to that running stream of action and narration; as often as he considered the _harmony_ of _colour_ and of characters in the epic, no man could be more angry with his own destructive criticism than himself. wolf ceased to be a wolfian whenever he placed himself at the point of view of the reader or the listener, to whom alone every poet makes his appeal. but he deemed it his duty to place himself at another point of view, that of the scientific literary historian, the historian of a period concerning whose history he could know nothing. "how could the thing be possible?" he asked himself. "how could a long poem like the _iliad_ come into existence in the historical circumstances?" [footnote, exact place in paragraph unknown: preface to homer, p, xxii., 1794.]. wolf was unaware that he did not know what the historical circumstances were. we know how little we know, but we do know more than wolf. he invented the historical circumstances of the supposed poet. they were, he said, like those of a man who should build a large ship in an inland place, with no sea to launch it upon. the _iliad_ was the large ship; the sea was the public. homer could have no _readers_, wolf said, in an age that, like the old hermit of prague, "never saw pen and ink," had no knowledge of letters; or, if letters were dimly known, had never applied them to literature. in such circumstances no man could have a motive for composing a long poem. [footnote: _prolegomena to the iliad_, p. xxvi.] yet if the original poet, "homer," could make "the greater part of the songs," as wolf admitted, what physical impossibility stood in the way of his making the whole? meanwhile, the historical circumstances, as conceived of by wolf, were imaginary. he did not take the circumstances of the poet as described in the odyssey. here a king or prince has a minstrel, honoured as were the minstrels described in the ancient irish books of law. his duty is to entertain the prince and his family and guests by singing epic chants after supper, and there is no reason why his poetic narratives should be brief, but rather he has an opportunity that never occurred again till the literary age of greece for producing a long poem, continued from night to night. in the later age, in the asiatic colonies and in greece, the rhapsodists, competing for prizes at feasts, or reciting to a civic crowd, were limited in time and gave but snatches of poetry. it is in this later civic age that a poet without readers would have little motive for building wolfs great ship of song, and scant chance of launching it to any profitable purpose. to this point we return; but when once critics, following wolf, had convinced themselves that a long early poem was impossible, they soon found abundant evidence that it had never existed. they have discovered discrepancies of which, they say, no one sane poet could have been guilty. they have also discovered that the poems had not, as wolf declared, "one 'harmony of colour" (_unus color_). each age, they say, during which the poems were continued, lent its own colour. the poets, by their theory, now preserved the genuine tradition of things old; cremation, cairn and urn burial; the use of the chariot in war; the use of bronze for weapons; a peculiar stage of customary law; a peculiar form of semi-feudal society; a peculiar kind of house. but again, by a change in the theory, the poets introduced later novelties; later forms of defensive armour; later modes of burial; later religious and speculative beliefs; a later style of house; an advanced stage of law; modernisms in grammar and language. the usual position of critics in this matter is stated by helbig; and we are to contend that the theory is contradicted by all experience of ancient literatures, and is in itself the reverse of consistent. "the _artists_ of antiquity," says helbig, with perfect truth, "had no idea of archaeological studies.... they represented legendary scenes in conformity with the spirit of their own age, and reproduced the arms and implements and costume that they saw around them." [footnote: _l'épopée homerique_, p. 5; _homerische epos_, p. 4.] now a poet is an _artist_, like another, and he, too--no less than the vase painter or engraver of gems--in dealing with legends of times past, represents (in an uncritical age) the arms, utensils, costume, and the religious, geographical, legal, social, and political ideas of his own period. we shall later prove that this is true by examples from the early mediaeval epic poetry of europe. it follows that if the _iliad_ is absolutely consistent and harmonious in its picture of life, and of all the accessories of life, the _iliad_ is the work of a single age, of a single stage of culture, the poet describing his own environment. but helbig, on the other hand, citing wilamowitz moellendorff, declares that the _iliad_--the work of four centuries, he says--maintains its unity of colour by virtue of an uninterrupted poetical tradition. [footnote: _homerische untersuchungen_, p. 292; _homerische epos_, p. i.] if so, the poets must have archaeologised, must have kept asking themselves, "is this or that detail true to the past?" which artists in uncritical ages never do, as we have been told by helbig. they must have carefully pondered the surviving old achaean lays, which "were born when the heroes could not read, or boil flesh, or back a steed." by carefully observing the earliest lays the late poets, in times of changed manners, "could avoid anachronisms by the aid of tradition, which gave them a very exact idea of the epic heroes." such is the opinion of wilamowitz moellendorff. he appears to regard the tradition as keeping the later poets in the old way automatically, not consciously, but this, we also learn from helbig, did not occur. the poets often wandered from the way. [footnote: helbig, _homerische epos,_ pp. 2, 3.] thus old mycenaean lays, if any existed, would describe the old mycenaean mode of burial. the homeric poet describes something radically different. we vainly ask for proof that in any early national literature known to us poets have been true to the colour and manners of the remote times in which their heroes moved, and of which old minstrels sang. the thing is without example: of this proofs shall be offered in abundance. meanwhile, the whole theory which regards the _iliad_ as the work of four or five centuries rests on the postulate that poets throughout these centuries did what such poets never do, kept true to the details of a life remote from their own, and also did not. for helbig does not, after all, cleave to his opinion. on the other hand, he says that the later poets of the _iliad_ did not cling to tradition. "they allowed themselves to be influenced by their own environment: _this influence betrays itself in the descriptions of details_.... the rhapsodists," (reciters, supposed to have altered the poems at will), "did not fail to interpolate relatively recent elements into the oldest parts of the epic." [footnote: _homerische epos,_ p. 2.] at this point comes in a complex inconsistency. the tenth book of the _iliad_, thinks helbig--in common with almost all critics--"is one of the most recent lays of the _iliad_." but in this recent lay (say of the eighth or seventh century) the poet describes the thracians as on a level of civilisation with the achaeans, and, indeed, as even more luxurious, wealthy, and refined in the matter of good horses, glorious armour, and splendid chariots. but, by the time of the persian wars, says helbig, the thracians were regarded by the greeks as rude barbarians, and their military equipment was totally un-greek. they did not wear helmets, but caps of fox-skin. they had no body armour; their shields were small round bucklers; their weapons were bows and daggers. these customs could not, at the time of the persian wars, be recent innovations in thrace. [footnote: herodotus, vii. 75.] had the poet of _iliad_, book x., known the thracians in _this_ condition, says helbig, as he was fond of details of costume and arms, he would have certainly described their fox-skin caps, bows, bucklers, and so forth. he would not here have followed the epic tradition, which represented the thracians as makers of great swords and as splendidly armed charioteers. his audience had met the thracians in peace and war, and would contradict the poet's description of them as heavily armed charioteers. it follows, therefore, that the latest poets, such as the author of book x., did not introduce recent details, those of their own time, but we have just previously been told that to do so was their custom in the description of details. now studniczka [footnote: _homerische epos, pp. 7-11, cf._ note i; _zeitschrift fur die oestern gymnasien_, 1886, p. 195.] explains the picture of the thracians in _iliad_, book x., on helbig's _other_ principle, namely, that the very late author of the tenth book merely conforms to the conventional tradition of the epic, adheres to the model set in ancient achaean, or rather ancient ionian times, and scrupulously preserved by the latest poets--that is, when the latest poets do not bring in the new details of their own age. but helbig will not accept his own theory in this case, whence does it follow that the author of the tenth book must, in his opinion, have lived in achaean times, and described the thracians as they then were, charioteers, heavily armed, not light-clad archers? if this is so, we ask how helbig can aver that the tenth book is one of the latest parts of the _iliad?_ in studying the critics who hold that the _iliad_ is the growth of four centuries--say from the eleventh to the seventh century b.c.--no consistency is to be discovered; the earth is never solid beneath our feet. we find now that the poets are true to tradition in the details of ancient life--now that the poets introduce whatever modern details they please. the late poets have now a very exact knowledge of the past; now, the late poets know nothing about the past, or, again, some of the poets are fond of actual and very minute archaeological research! the theory shifts its position as may suit the point to be made at the moment by the critic. all is arbitrary, and it is certain that logic demands a very different method of inquiry. if helbig and other critics of his way of thinking mean that in the _iliad_ (1) there are parts of genuine antiquity; other parts (2) by poets who, with stern accuracy, copied the old modes; other parts (3) by poets who tried to copy but failed; with passages (4) by poets who deliberately innovated; and passages (5) by poets who drew fanciful pictures of the past "from their inner consciousness," while, finally (6), some poets made minute antiquarian researches; and if the argument be that the critics can detect these six elements, then we are asked to repose unlimited confidence in critical powers of discrimination. the critical standard becomes arbitrary and subjective. it is our effort, then, in the following pages to show that the _unus_ color of wolf does pervade the epics, that recent details are not often, if ever, interpolated, that the poems harmoniously represent one age, and that a brief age, of culture; that this effect cannot, in a thoroughly uncritical period, have been deliberately aimed at and produced by archaeological learning, or by sedulous copying of poetic tradition, or by the scientific labours of an editor of the sixth century b.c. we shall endeavour to prove, what we have already indicated, that the hypotheses of expansion are not self-consistent, or in accordance with what is known of the evolution of early national poetry. the strongest part, perhaps, of our argument is to rest on our interpretation of archaeological evidence, though we shall not neglect the more disputable or less convincing contentions of literary criticism. chapter ii hypotheses as to the growth of the epics a theorist who believes that the homeric poems are the growth of four changeful centuries, must present a definite working hypothesis as to how they escaped from certain influences of the late age in which much of them is said to have been composed. we must first ask to what manner of audiences did the poets sing, in the alleged four centuries of the evolution of the epics. mr. leaf, as a champion of the theory of ages of "expansion," answers that "the _iliad_ and _odyssey_ are essentially, and above all, court poems. they were composed to be sung in the palaces of a ruling aristocracy ... the poems are aristocratic and courtly, not popular." [footnote: companion to the _iliad_, pp. 2,8. 1892.] they are not _volkspoesie_; they are not ballads. "it is now generally recognised that this conception is radically false." these opinions, in which we heartily agree--there never was such a thing as a "popular" epic--were published fourteen years ago. mr. leaf, however, would not express them with regard to "our" _iliad_ and odyssey, because, in his view, a considerable part of the _iliad_, as it stands, was made, not by court bards in the achaean courts of europe, not for an audience of noble warriors and dames, but by wandering minstrels in the later ionian colonies of asia. they did not chant for a military aristocracy, but for the enjoyment of town and country folk at popular festivals. [footnote: iliad, vol. i. p. xvi. 1900.] the poems were _begun_, indeed, he thinks, for "a wealthy aristocracy living on the product of their lands," in european greece; were begun by contemporary court minstrels, but were continued, vastly expanded, and altered to taste by wandering singers and reciting rhapsodists, who amused the holidays of a commercial, expansive, and bustling ionian democracy. [footnote: _companion to the iliad_, p. ii.] we must suppose that, on this theory, the later poets pleased a commercial democracy by keeping up the tone that had delighted an old land-owning military aristocracy. it is not difficult, however, to admit this as possible, for the poems continued to be admired in all ages of greece and under every form of society. the real question is, would the modern poets be the men to keep up a tone some four or five centuries old, and to be true, if they were true, to the details of the heroic age? "it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that some part of the most primitive _iliad_ may have been actually sung by the court minstrel in the palace whose ruins can still be seen in mycenae." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. xv.] but, by the expansionist theory, even the oldest parts of our _iliad_ are now full of what we may call quite recent ionian additions, full of late retouches, and full, so to speak, of omissions of old parts. through four or five centuries, by the hypothesis, every singer who could find an audience was treating as much as he knew of a vast body of ancient lays exactly as he pleased, adding here, lopping there, altering everywhere. moreover, these were centuries full of change. the ancient achaean palaces were becoming the ruins which we still behold. the old art had faded, and then fallen under the disaster of the dorian conquest. a new art, or a recrudescence of earlier art, very crude and barbaric, had succeeded, and was beginning to acquire form and vitality. the very scene of life was altered: the new singers and listeners dwelt on the eastern side of the aegean. knights no longer, as in europe, fought from chariots: war was conducted by infantry, for the most part, with mounted auxiliaries. with the disappearance of the war chariot the huge mycenaean shields had vanished or were very rarely used. the early vase painters do not, to my knowledge, represent heroes as fighting from war chariots. they had lost touch with that method. fighting men now carried relatively small round bucklers, and iron was the metal chiefly employed for swords, spears, and arrow points. would the new poets, in deference to tradition, abstain from mentioning cavalry, or small bucklers, or iron swords and spears? or would they avoid puzzling their hearers by speaking of obsolete and unfamiliar forms of tactics and of military equipment? would they therefore sing of things familiar--of iron weapons, small round shields, hoplites, and cavalry? we shall see that confused and self-contradictory answers are given by criticism to all these questions by scholars who hold that the epics are not the product of one, but of many ages. there were other changes between the ages of the original minstrel and of the late successors who are said to have busied themselves in adding to, mutilating, and altering his old poem. kings and courts had passed away; old ionian myths and religious usages, unknown to the homeric poets, had come out into the light; commerce and pleasure and early philosophies were the chief concerns of life. yet the poems continued to be aristocratic in manners; and, in religion and ritual, to be pure from recrudescences of savage poetry and superstition, though the ionians "did not drop the more primitive phases of belief which had clung to them; these rose to the surface with the rest of the marvellous ionic genius, and many an ancient survival was enshrined in the literature or mythology of athens which had long passed out of all remembrance at mycenas." [footnote: _companion to the iliad_, p. 7.] amazing to say, none of these "more primitive phases of belief," none of the recrudescent savage magic, was intruded by the late ionian poets into the iliad which they continued, by the theory. such phases of belief were, indeed, by their time popular, and frequently appeared in the cyclic poems on the trojan war; continuations of the _iliad_, which were composed by ionian authors at the same time as much of the _iliad_ itself (by the theory) was composed. the authors of these cyclic poems--authors contemporary with the makers of much of the _iliad_--_were_ eminently "un-homeric" in many respects. [footnote: _cf_. monro, _the cyclic poets; odyssey_, vol. ii, pp. 342-384.] they had ideas very different from those of the authors of the _iliad_ and _odyssey_, as these ideas have reached us. helbig states this curious fact, that the homeric poems are free from many recent or recrudescent ideas common in other epics composed during the later centuries of the supposed four hundred years of epic growth. [footnote: _homerische epos_, p. 3.] thus a signet ring was mentioned in the _ilias puma_, and there are no rings in _iliad_ or _odyssey_. but helbig does not perceive the insuperable difficulty which here encounters his hypothesis. he remarks: "in certain poems which were grouping themselves around the _iliad and _odyssey, we meet data absolutely opposed to the conventional style of the epic." he gives three or four examples of perfectly un-homeric ideas occurring in epics of the eighth to seventh centuries, b.c., and a large supply of such cases can be adduced. but helbig does not ask how it happened that, if poets of these centuries had lost touch with the epic tradition, and had wandered into a new region of thought, as they had, examples of their notions do not occur in the _iliad_ and _odyssey_. by his theory these poems were being added to and altered, even in their oldest portions, at the very period when strange fresh, or old and newly revived fancies were flourishing. if so, how were the _iliad_ and _odyssey_, unlike the cyclic poems, kept uncontaminated, as they confessedly were, by the new romantic ideas? here is the real difficulty. cyclic poets of the eighth and seventh centuries had certainly lost touch with the epic tradition; their poems make that an admitted fact. yet poets of the eighth to seventh centuries were, by the theory, busily adding to and altering the ancient lays of the _iliad_. how did _they_ abstain from the new or revived ideas, and from the new _genre_ of romance? are we to believe that one set of late ionian poets--they who added to and altered the iliad--were true to tradition, while another contemporary set of ionian poets, the cyclics--authors of new epics on homeric themes--are known to have quite lost touch with the homeric taste, religion, and ritual? the reply will perhaps be a cyclic poet said, "here i am going to compose quite a new poem about the old heroes. i shall make them do and think and believe as i please, without reference to the evidence of the old poems." but, it will have to be added, the rhapsodists of 800-540 b.c., and the general editor of the latter date, thought, _we_ are continuing an old set of lays, and we must be very careful in adhering to manners, customs, and beliefs as described by our predecessors. for instance, the old heroes had only bronze, no iron,--and then the rhapsodists forgot, and made iron a common commodity in the _iliad_. again, the rhapsodists knew that the ancient heroes had no corslets--the old lays, we learn, never spoke of corslets--but they made them wear corslets of much splendour. [footnote: the reader must remember that the view of the late poets as careful adherents of tradition in usages and ideas only obtains _sometimes_; at others the critics declare that archaeological precision is _not_ preserved, and that the ionic continuators introduced, for example, the military gear of their own period into a poem which represents much older weapons and equipments.] this theory does not help us. in an uncritical age poets could not discern that their genre of romance and religion was alien from that of homer. to return to the puzzle about the careful and precise continuators of the _iliad_, as contrasted with their heedless contemporaries, the authors of the cyclic poems. how "non-homeric" the authors of these cyclic poems were, before and after 660 b.c., we illustrate from examples of their left hand backslidings and right hand fallings off. they introduced (1) the apotheosis of the dioscuri, who in homer (_iliad_, iii. 243) are merely dead men (_cypria_). (2) story of iphigenia _cypria_. (3) story of palamedes, who is killed when angling by odysseus and diomede (cypria). homer's heroes never fish, except in stress of dire necessity, in the odyssey, and homer's own diomede and odysseus would never stoop to assassinate a companion when engaged in the contemplative man's recreation. we here see the heroes in late degraded form as on the attic stage. (4) the cyclics introduce helen as daughter of nemesis, and describe the flight of nemesis from zeus in various animal forms, a märchen of a sort not popular with homer; an ionic märchen, mr. leaf would say. there is nothing like this in the iliad and odyssey. (5) they call the son of achilles, not neoptolemus, as homer does, but pyrrhus. (6) they represent the achaean army as obtaining supplies through three magically gifted maidens, who produce corn, wine, and oil at will, as in fairy tales. another ionic non-achaean märchen! they bring in ghosts of heroes dead and buried. such ghosts, in homer's opinion, were impossible if the dead had been cremated. all these non-homeric absurdities, save the last, are from the cypria, dated by sir richard jebb about 776 b.c., long before the odyssey was put into shape, namely, after 660 b. c. in his opinion. yet the alleged late compiler of the odyssey, in the seventh century, never wanders thus from the homeric standard in taste. what a skilled archaeologist he must have been! the author of the cypria knew the iliad, [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. p. 354.] but his knowledge could not keep him true to tradition. (7) in the aethiopis (about 776 b.c.) men are made immortal after death, and are worshipped as heroes, an idea foreign to iliad and odyssey. (8) there is a savage ritual of purification from blood shed by a homicide (compare eumenides, line 273). this is unheard of in iliad and odyssey, though familiar to aeschylus. (9) achilles, after death, is carried to the isle of leuke. (10) the fate of ilium, in the cyclic little _iliad_, hangs on the palladium, of which nothing is known in _iliad_ or _odyssey_. the _little iliad_ is dated about 700 b.c. (11) the _nostoi_ mentions molossians, not named by homer (which is a trifle); it also mentions the asiatic city of colophon, an ionian colony, which is not a trivial self-betrayal on the part of the poet. he is dated about 750 b.c. thus, more than a century before the _odyssey_ received its final form, after 660 b.c., from the hands of one man (according to the theory), the other ionian poets who attempted epic were betraying themselves as non-homeric on every hand. [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, vol. ii. pp. 347-383.] our examples are but a few derived from the brief notices of the cyclic poets' works, as mentioned in ancient literature; these poets probably, in fact, betrayed themselves constantly. but their contemporaries, the makers of late additions to the _odyssey_, and the later mosaic worker who put it together, never betrayed themselves to anything like the fatal extent of anachronism exhibited by the cyclic poets. how, if the true ancient tone, taste, manners, and religion were lost, as the cyclic poets show that they were, did the contemporary ionian poets or rhapsodists know and preserve the old manner? the best face we can put on the matter is to say that all the cyclic poets were recklessly independent of tradition, while all men who botched at the _iliad_ were very learned, and very careful to maintain harmony in their pictures of life and manners, except when they introduced changes in burial, bride-price, houses, iron, greaves, and corslets, all of them things, by the theory, modern, and when they sang in modern grammar. yet despite this conscientiousness of theirs, most of the many authors of our _iliad_ and _odyssey_ were, by the theory, strolling irresponsible rhapsodists, like the later _jongleurs_ of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in mediaeval france. how could these strollers keep their modern ionian ideas, or their primitive, recrudescent phases of belief, out of their lays, as far as they _did_ keep them out, while the contemporary authors of the _cypria_, _the sack of ilios_, and other cyclic poets were full of new ideas, legends, and beliefs, or primitive notions revived, and, save when revived, quite obviously late and quite un-homeric in any case? the difficulty is the greater if the cyclic poems were long poems, with one author to each epic. such authors were obviously men of ambition; they produced serious works _de longue haleine_. it is from them that we should naturally expect conservative and studious adhesion to the traditional models. from casual strollers like the rhapsodists and chanters at festivals, we look for nothing of the sort. _they_ might be expected to introduce great feats done by sergeants and privates, so to speak--men of the nameless [greek: laos], the host, the foot men--who in homer are occasionally said to perish of disease or to fall under the rain of arrows, but are never distinguished by name. the strollers, it might be thought, would also be the very men to introduce fairy tales, freaks of primitive ionian myth, discreditable anecdotes of the princely heroes, and references to the ionian colonies. but it is not so; the serious, laborious authors of the long cyclic poems do such un-homeric things as these; the gay, irresponsible strolling singers of a lay here and a lay there--lays now incorporated in the _iliad_ and _odyssey_--scrupulously avoid such faults. they never even introduce a signet ring. these are difficulties in the theory of the _iliad_ as a patchwork by many hands, in many ages, which nobody explains; which, indeed, nobody seems to find difficult. yet the difficulty is insuperable. even if we take refuge with wilamowitz in the idea that the cyclic and homeric poems were at first mere protoplasm of lays of many ages, and that they were all compiled, say in the sixth century, into so many narratives, we come no nearer to explaining why the tone, taste, and ideas of two such narratives--illiad and odyssey--are confessedly distinct from the tone, taste, and ideas of all the others. the cyclic poems are certainly the production of a late and changed age? [footnote: for what manner of audience, if not for readers, the cyclic poems were composed is a mysterious question.] the _iliad_ is not in any degree--save perhaps in a few interpolated passages--touched by the influences of that late age. it is not a complex of the work of four incompatible centuries, as far as this point is concerned--the point of legend, religion, ritual, and conception of heroic character. chapter iii hypotheses of epic composition whosoever holds that the homeric poems were evolved out of the lays of many men, in many places, during many periods of culture, must present a consistent and logical hypothesis as to how they attained their present plots and forms. these could not come by accident, even if the plots are not good--as all the world held that they were, till after wolf's day--but very bad, as some critics now assert. still plot and form, beyond the power of chance to produce, the poems do possess. nobody goes so far as to deny that; and critics make hypotheses explanatory of the fact that a single ancient "kernel" of some 2500 lines, a "kernel" altered at will by any one who pleased during four centuries, became a constructive whole. if the hypotheses fail to account for the fact, we have the more reason to believe that the poems are the work of one age, and, mainly, of one man. in criticising homeric criticism as it is to-day, we cannot do better than begin by examining the theories of mr. leaf which are offered by him merely as "a working hypothesis." his most erudite work is based on a wide knowledge of german homeric speculation, of the exact science of grammar, of archaeological discoveries, and of manuscripts. [footnote: the iliad. macmillan & co. 1900, 1902.] his volumes are, i doubt not, as they certainly deserve to be, on the shelves of every homeric student, old or young, and doubtless their contents reach the higher forms in schools, though there is reason to suppose that, about the unity of homer, schoolboys remain conservative. in this book of more than 1200 pages mr. leaf's space is mainly devoted to textual criticism, philology, and pure scholarship, but his introductions, notes, and appendices also set forth his mature ideas about the homeric problem in general. he has altered some of his opinions since the publication of his _companion to the iliad_(1892), but the main lines of his old system are, except on one crucial point, unchanged. his theory we shall try to state and criticise; in general outline it is the current theory of separatist critics, and it may fairly be treated as a good example of such theories. the system is to the following effect: greek tradition, in the classical period, regarded the _iliad_ and _odyssey_ as the work of one man, homer, a native of one or other of the ionian colonies of asia minor. but the poems show few obvious signs of origin in asia. they deal with dwellers, before the dorian invasion (which the poet never alludes to), on the continent of europe and in crete. [footnote: if the poet sang after the tempest of war that came down with the dorians from the north, he would probably have sought a topic in the achaean exploits and sorrows of that period. the dorians, not the trojans, would have been the foes. the epics of france of the eleventh and twelfth centuries dwell, not on the real victories of the remote charlemagne so much as on the disasters of aliscans and roncesvaux--defeats at saracen hands, saracens being the enemies of the twelfth-century poets. no saracens, in fact, fought at roncesvaux.] the lays are concerned with "good old times"; presumably between 1500 and 1100 b.c. their pictures of the details of life harmonise more with what we know of the society of that period from the evidence of buildings and recent excavations, than with what we know of the life and the much more rude and barbaric art of the so-called "dipylon" period of "geometrical" ornament considerably later. in the dipylon age though the use of iron, even for swords (made on the lines of the old bronze sword), was familiar, art was on a most barbaric level, not much above the bed indian type, as far, at least, as painted vases bear witness. the human figure is designed as in tommy traddles's skeletons; there is, however, some crude but promising idea of composition. the picture of life in the homeric poems, then, is more like that of, say, 1500-1100 b.c. than of, say, 1000-850 b.c. in mr. leaf's opinion. certainly homer describes a wealthy aristocracy, subject to an over-lord, who rules, by right divine, from "golden mycenae." we hear of no such potentate in ionia. homer's accounts of contemporary art seem to be inspired by the rich art generally dated about 1500-1200. yet there are "many traces of apparent anachronism," of divergence from the more antique picture of life. in these divergences are we to recognise the picture of a later development of the ancient existence of 1500-1200 b.c.? or have elements of the life of a much later age of greece (say, 800-550 b.c.) been consciously or unconsciously introduced by the late poets? here mr. leaf recognises a point on which we have insisted, and must keep insisting, for it is of the first importance. "it is _a priori_ the most probable" supposition that, "in an uncritical age," poets do _not_ "reproduce the circumstances of the old time," but "only clothe the old tale in the garb of their own days." poets in an uncritical age always, in our experience, "clothe old tales with the garb of their own time," but mr. leaf thinks that, in the case of the homeric poems, this idea "is not wholly borne out by the facts." in fact, mr. leaf's hypothesis, like helbig's, exhibits a come-and-go between the theory that his late poets clung close to tradition and so kept true to ancient details of life, and the theory that they did quite the reverse in many cases. of this frequent examples will occur. he writes, "the homeric period is certainly later than the shaft tombs" (discovered at mycenae by dr. schliemann), "but it does not necessarily follow that it is post-mycenaean. it is quite possible that certain notable differences between the poems and the monuments" (of mycenae) "in burial, for instance, and in women's dress may be due to changes which arose within the mycenaean age itself, in that later part of it of which our knowledge is defective--almost as defective as it is of the subsequent 'dipylon' period. on the whole, the resemblance to the typical mycenaean culture is more striking than the difference." [footnote: leaf, iliad, vol. i. pp. xiii.-xv. 1900.] so far mr. leaf states precisely the opinion for which we argue. the homeric poems describe an age later than that of the famous tombs--so rich in relics--of the mycenaean acropolis, and earlier than the tombs of the dipylon of athens. the poems thus spring out of an age of which, except from the poems themselves, we know little or nothing, because, as is shown later, no cairn burials answering to the frequent homeric descriptions have ever been discovered--so relics corroborating homeric descriptions are to seek. but the age attaches itself in many ways to the age of the mycenaean tombs, while, in our opinion, it stands quite apart from the post-dorian culture. where we differ from mr. leaf is in believing that the poems, as wholes, were composed in that late mycenaean period of which, from material remains, we know very little; that "much new" was not added, as he thinks, in "the ionian development" which lasted perhaps "from the ninth century b.c. to the seventh." we cannot agree with mr. leaf, when he, like helbig, thinks that much of the detail of the ancient life in the poems had early become so "stereotyped" that no continuator, however late, dared "intentionally to sap" the type, "though he slipped from time to time into involuntary anachronism." some poets are also asserted to indulge in _voluntary_ anachronism when, as mr. leaf supposes, they equip the ancient warriors with corslets and greaves and other body armour of bronze such as, in his opinion, the old heroes never knew, such as never were mentioned in the oldest parts or "kernel" of the poems. thus the traditional details of mycenaean life sometimes are regarded as "stereotyped" in poetic tradition; sometimes as subject to modern alterations of a sweeping and revolutionary kind. as to deliberate adherence to tradition by the poets, we have proved that the cyclic epic poets of 800-660 b.c. wandered widely from the ancient models. if, then, every minstrel or rhapsodist who, anywhere, added at will to the old "kernel" of the _achilles_ was, so far as he was able, as conscientiously precise in his stereotyped archaeological details as mr. leaf sometimes supposes, the fact is contrary to general custom in such cases. when later poets in an uncritical age take up and rehandle the poetic themes of their predecessors, they always give to the stories "a new costume," as m. gaston paris remarks in reference to thirteenth century dealings with french epics of the eleventh century. but, in the critics' opinion, the late rehandlers of old achaean lays preserved the archaic modes of life, war, costume, weapons, and so forth, with conscientious care, except in certain matters to be considered later, when they deliberately did the very reverse. sometimes the late poets devoutly follow tradition. sometimes they deliberately innovate. sometimes they pedantically "archaise," bringing in genuine, but by their time forgotten, mycenaean things, and criticism can detect their doings in each case. though the late continuators of the _iliad_ were able, despite certain inadvertencies, to keep up for some four centuries in asia the harmonious picture of ancient achaean life and society in europe, critics can distinguish four separate strata, the work of many different ages, in the _iliad_. of the first stratum composed in europe, say about 1300-1150 b.c. (i give a conjectural date under all reserves), the topic was _the wrath of achilles_. of this poem, in mr. leaf's opinion, (a) the first book and fifty lines of the second book remain intact or, perhaps, are a blend of two versions. (b) the _valour of agamemnon_ and _defeat of the achaeans_. of this there are portions in book xi., but they were meddled with, altered, and generally doctored, "down to the latest period," namely, the age of pisistratus in athens, the middle of the sixth century b.c. (c) the fight in which, after their defeat, the achaeans try to save the ships from the torch of hector, and the _valour of patroclus_ (but some critics do not accept this), with his death (xv., xvi. in parts). (d) some eighty lines on the _arming of achilles_ (xix.). (e) perhaps an incident or two in books xx., xxi. (f) the _slaying hector_ by achilles, in books xxi., xxii. (but some of the learned will not admit this, and we shall, unhappily, have to prove that, if mr. leaf's principles be correct, we really know nothing about the _slaying of hector_ in its original form). of these six elements only did the original poem consist, mr. leaf thinks; a rigid critic will reject as original even the _valour of patroclus_ and the _death of hector_, but mr. leaf refuses to go so far as that. the original poem, as detected by him, is really "the work of a single poet, perhaps the greatest in all the world's history." if the original poet did no more than is here allotted to him, especially if he left out the purpose of zeus and the person of thetis in book i., we do not quite understand his unapproachable greatness. he must certainly have drawn a rather commonplace achilles, as we shall see, and we confess to preferring the _iliad_ as it stands. the brief narrative cut out of the mass by mr. leaf, then, was the genuine old original poem or "kernel." what we commonly call the _iliad_, on the other hand, is, by his theory, a thing of shreds and patches, combined in a manner to be later described. the blend, we learn, has none of the masterly unity of the old original poem. meanwhile, as criticism of literary composition is a purely literary question, critics who differ from mr. leaf have a right to hold that the _iliad_ as it stands contains, and always did contain, a plot of masterly perfection. we need not attend here so closely to mr. leaf's theory in the matter of the first expansions, (2) and the second expansions, (3) but the latest expansions (4) give the account of _the embassy_ to _achilles_ with his refusal of _agamemnon's apology_(book ix.), the [blank space] (book xxiv.), the _reconciliation of achilles and agamemnon, and the funeral games_ of _patroclus_ (xxiii.). in all these parts of the poem there are, we learn, countless alterations, additions, and expansions, with, last of all, many transitional passages, "the work of the editor inspired by the statesman," that is, of an hypothetical editor who really by the theory made our _iliad_, being employed to that end by pistratus about 540 b.c. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. pp. x., xiv. 1900.]. mr. leaf and critics who take his general view are enabled to detect the patches and tatters of many ages by various tests, for example, by discovering discrepancies in the narrative, such as in their opinion no one sane poet could make. other proofs of multiplex authorship are discovered by the critic's private sense of what the poem ought to be, by his instinctive knowledge of style, by detection of the poet's supposed errors in geography, by modernisms and false archaisms in words and grammar, and by the presence of many objects, especially weapons and armour, which the critic believes to have been unknown to the original minstrel. thus criticism can pick out the things old, fairly old, late, and quite recent, from the mass, evolved through many centuries, which is called the _iliad_. if the existing _iliad_ is a mass of "expansions," added at all sorts of dates, in any number of places, during very different stages of culture, to a single short old poem of the mycenaean age, science needs an hypothesis which will account for the _iliad_ "as it stands." everybody sees the need of the hypothesis, how was the medley of new songs by many generations of irresponsible hands codified into a plot which used to be reckoned fine? how were the manners, customs, and characters, _unus color_, preserved in a fairly coherent and uniform aspect? how was the whole greek world, throughout which all manner of discrepant versions and incongruous lays must, by the theory, have been current, induced to accept the version which has been bequeathed to us? why, and for what audience or what readers, did somebody, in a late age of brief lyrics and of philosophic poems, take the trouble to harmonise the body of discrepant wandering lays, and codify them in the _iliad_? an hypothesis which will answer all these questions is the first thing needful, and hypotheses are produced. believers like mr. leaf in the development of the _iliad_ through the changing revolutionary centuries, between say 1200 and 600 b.c., consciously stand in need of a working hypothesis which will account, above all, for two facts: first, the relatively correct preservation of the harmony of the picture of life, of ideas political and religious, of the characters of the heroes, of the customary law (such as the bride-price in marriage), and of the details as to weapons, implements, dress, art, houses, and so forth, when these are not (according to the theory) deliberately altered by late poets. next, the hypothesis must explain, in mr. leafs own words, how a single version of the _iliad_ came to be accepted, "where many rival versions must, from the necessity of the case, have once existed side by side." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. xviii. 1900.] three hypotheses have, in fact, been imagined: the first suggests the preservation of the original poems in very early written texts; not, of course, in "homer's autograph." this view mr. leaf, we shall see, discards. the second presents the notion of one old sacred college for the maintenance of poetic uniformity. mr. leaf rejects this theory, while supposing that there were schools for professional reciters. last, there is the old hypothesis of wolf: "pisistratus" (about 540 b.c.) "was the first who had the homeric poems committed to writing, and brought into that order in which we now possess them." this hypothesis, now more than a century old, would, if it rested on good evidence, explain how a single version of the various lays came to be accepted and received as authorised. the greek world, by the theory, had only in various places various sets of incoherent chants _orally_ current on the wrath of the public was everywhere a public of listeners, who heard the lays sung on rare occasions at feasts and fairs, or whenever a strolling rhapsodist took up his pitch, for a day or two, at a street corner. there was, by the theory, no reading public for the homeric poetry. but, by the time of pisistratus, a reading public was coming into existence. the tyrant had the poems collected, edited, arranged into a continuous narrative, primarily for the purpose of regulating the recitals at the panathenaic festival. when once they were written, copies were made, and the rest of hellas adopted these for their public purposes. on a small scale we have a case analogous. the old songs of scotland existed, with the airs, partly in human memory, partly in scattered broadsheets. the airs were good, but the words were often silly, more often they were fescennine--"more dirt than wit." burns rewrote the words, which were published in handsome volumes, with the old airs, or with these airs altered, and his became the authorised versions, while the ancient anonymous chants were almost entirely forgotten. the parallel is fairly close, but there are points of difference. burns was a great lyric poet, whereas we hear of no great epic poet in the age of pisistratus. the old words which burns's songs superseded were wretched doggerel; not such were the ancient greek heroic lays. the old scottish songs had no sacred historic character; they did not contain the history of the various towns and districts of scotland. the heroic lays of greece were believed, on the other hand, to be a kind of domesday book of ancient principalities, and cities, and worshipped heroes. thus it was much easier for a great poet like burns to supersede with his songs a mass of unconsidered "sculdudery" old lays, in which no man or set of men had any interest, than for a mere editor, in the age of pisistratus, to supersede a set of lays cherished, in one shape or another, by every state in greece. this holds good, even if, prior to pisistratus, there existed in greece no written texts of homer, and no reading public, a point which we shall show reasons for declining to concede. the theory of the edition of pisistratus, if it rested on valid evidence, would explain "how a single version of the poems came to be accepted," namely, because the poem was now _written_ for the first time, and oral versions fell out of memory. but it would not, of course, explain how, before pisistratus, during four or five centuries of change, the new poets and reciters, throughout the greek world, each adding such fresh verses as he pleased, and often introducing such modern details of life as he pleased, kept up the harmony of the homeric picture of life, and character, and law, as far as it confessedly exists. to take a single instance: the poems never allude to the personal armorial bearings of the heroes. they are unknown to or unnamed by homer, but are very familiar on the shields in seventh century and sixth century vases, and aeschylus introduces them with great poetic effect in [blank space]. how did late continuators, familiar with the serpents, lions, bulls' heads, crabs, doves, and so forth, on the contemporary shields, keep such picturesque and attractive details out of their new rhapsodies? in mediaeval france, we shall show, the epics (eleventh to thirteenth centuries) deal with charlemagne and his peers of the eighth century a.d. but they provide these heroes with the armorial bearings which came in during the eleventh to twelfth century a.d. the late homeric rhapsodists avoided such tempting anachronisms. wolf's theory, then, explains "how a single version came to be accepted." it was the first _written_ version; the others died out, like the old scots orally repeated songs, when burns published new words to the airs. but wolf's theory does not explain the harmony of the picture of life, the absence of post-homeric ideas and ways of living, in the first written version, which, practically, is our own version. in 1892 (_companion to the iliad_) mr. leaf adopted a different theory, the hypothesis of a homeric "school" "which busied itself with the tradition of the homeric poetry," for there must have been some central authority to preserve the text intact when it could not be preserved in writing. were there no such body to maintain a fixed standard, the poems must have ended by varying indefinitely, according to the caprice of their various reciters. this is perfectly obvious. such a school could keep an eye on anachronisms and excise them; in fact, the maori priests, in an infinitely more barbarous state of society, had such schools for the preservation of their ancient hymns in purity. the older priests "insisted on a critical and verbatim rehearsal of all the ancient lore." proceedings were sanctioned by human sacrifices and many mystic rites. we are not told that new poems were produced and criticised; it does not appear that this was the case. pupils attended from three to five years, and then qualified as priests or _tohunga_ [footnote: white, _the ancient history of the maori, vol._ i. pp. 8-13.]. suppose that the asiatic greeks, like the maoris and zuñis, had poetic colleges of a sacred kind, admitting new poets, and keeping them up to the antique standard in all respects. if this were so, the relative rarity of "anachronisms" and of modernisms in language in the homeric poems is explained. but mr. leaf has now entirely and with a light heart abandoned his theory of a school, which is unsupported by evidence, he says.' "the great problem," he writes, "for those who maintain the gradual growth of the poems by a process of crystallisation has been to understand how a single version came to be accepted, where many rival versions must, from the necessity of the case, have once existed side by side. the assumption of a school or guild of singers has been made," and mr. leaf, in 1892, made the assumption himself: "as some such hypothesis we are bound to make in order to explain the possibility of any theory" (1892). [footnote: _companion to the iliad, pp. 20, 21._] but now (1900) he says, after mentioning "the assumption of a school or guild of singers," that "the rare mention of [greek: homeridai] in chios gives no support to this hypothesis, which lacks any other confirmation." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. xviii. p. xix.] he therefore now adopts the wolfian hypothesis that "an official copy of homer was made in athens at the time of solon or pisistratus," from the rhapsodies existing in the memory of reciters. [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. xix.] but mr. leaf had previously said [footnote: _companion to the iliad_, p. 190.] that "the legend which connects his" (pisistratus's) "name with the homeric poems is itself probably only conjectural, and of late date." now the evidence for pisistratus which, in 1892, he thought "conjectural and of late date," seems to him a sufficient basis for an hypothesis of a pisistratean editor of the iliad, while the evidence for an homeric school which appeared to him good enough for an hypothesis in 1892 is rejected as worthless, though, in each case, the evidence itself remains just what it used to be. this is not very satisfactory, and the pisistratean hypothesis is much less useful to a theorist than the former hypothesis of an homeric school, for the pisistratean hypothesis cannot explain the harmony of the characters and the details in the _iliad_, nor the absence of such glaring anachronisms as the cyclic poets made, nor the general "pre-odyssean" character of the language and grammar. by the pisistratean hypothesis there was not, what mr. leaf in 1892 justly deemed essential, a school "to maintain a fixed standard," throughout the changes of four centuries, and against the caprice of many generations of fresh reciters and irresponsible poets. the hypothesis of a school _was_ really that which, of the two, best explained the facts, and there is no more valid evidence for the first making and writing out of our _iliad_ under pisistratus than for the existence of a homeric school. the evidence for the _iliad_ edited for pisistratus is examined in a note at the close of this chapter. meanwhile mr. leaf now revives wolf's old theory to account for the fact that somehow "a single version" (of the homeric poems) "came to be accepted." his present theory, if admitted, does account for the acceptation of a single version of the poems, the first standard _written_ version, but fails to explain how "the caprice of the different reciters" (as he says) did not wander into every variety of anachronism in detail and in diction, thus producing a chaos which no editor of about 540 a.d. could force into its present uniformity. such an editor is now postulated by mr. leaf. if his editor's edition, as being _written_, was accepted by greece, then we "understand how a single version came to be accepted." but we do not understand how the editor could possibly introduce a harmony which could only have characterised his materials, as mr. leaf has justly remarked, if there was an homeric school "to maintain a fixed standard." but now such harmony in the picture of life as exists in the poems is left without any explanation. we have now, by the theory, a crowd of rhapsodists, many generations of uncontrolled wandering men, who, for several centuries, "rave, recite, and madden through the land," with no written texts, and with no "fixed body to maintain a standard." such men would certainly not adhere strictly to a stereotyped early tradition: _that_ we cannot expect from them. again, no editor of about 540 b.c. could possibly bring harmony of manners, customs, and diction into such of their recitals as he took down in writing. let us think out the supposed editor's situation. during three centuries nine generations of strollers have worked their will on one ancient short poem, _the wrath_ of _achilles_. this is, in itself, an unexampled fact. poets turn to new topics; they do not, as a rule, for centuries embroider one single situation out of the myriads which heroic legend affords. strolling reciters are the least careful of men, each would recite in the language and grammar of his day, and introduce the newly evolved words and idioms, the new and fashionable manners, costume, and weapons of his time. when war chariots became obsolete, he would bring in cavalry; when there was no over-lord, he would not trouble himself to maintain correctly the character and situation of agamemnon. he would speak of coined money, in cases of buying and selling; his european geography would often be wrong; he would not ignore the ionian cities of asia; most weapons would be of iron, not bronze, in his lays. ionian religious ideas could not possibly be excluded, nor changes in customary law, civil and criminal. yet, we think, none of these things occurs in homer. the editor of the theory had to correct all these anachronisms and discrepancies. what a task in an uncritical age! the editor's materials would be the lays known to such strollers as happened to be gathered, in athens, perhaps at the panathenaic festival. the _répertoire_ of each stroller would vary indefinitely from those of all the others. one man knew this chant, as modified or made by himself; other men knew others, equally unsatisfactory. the editor must first have written down from recitation all the passages that he could collect. then he was obliged to construct a narrative sequence containing a plot, which he fashioned by a process of selection and rejection; and then he had to combine passages, alter them, add as much as he thought fit, remove anachronisms, remove discrepancies, accidentally bring in fresh discrepancies (as always happens), weave transitional passages, look with an antiquarian eye after the too manifest modernisms in language and manners, and so produce the [blank space]. that, in the sixth century b.c., any man undertook such a task, and succeeded so well as to impose on aristotle and all the later greek critics, appears to be a theory that could only occur to a modern man of letters, who is thinking of the literary conditions of his own time. the editor was doing, and doing infinitely better, what lönnrot, in the nineteenth century, tried in vain to achieve for the finnish _kalewala_. [footnote: see comparetti, _the kalewala_.] centuries later than pisistratus, in a critical age, apollonius rhodius set about writing an epic of the homeric times. we know how entirely he failed, on all hands, to restore the manner of homer. the editor of 540 b.c. was a more scientific man. can any one who sets before himself the nature of the editor's task believe in him and it? to the master-less floating jellyfish of old poems and new, mr. leaf supposes that "but small and unimportant additions were made after the end of the eighth century or thereabouts," especially as "the creative and imaginative forces of the ionian race turned to other forms of expression," to lyrics and to philosophic poems. but the able pisistratean editor, after all, we find, introduced quantities of new matter into the poems--in the middle of the sixth century; that kind of industry, then, did not cease towards the end of the eighth century, as we have been told. on the other hand, as we shall learn, the editor contributed to the _iliad_, among other things, nestor's descriptions of his youthful adventures, for the purpose of flattering nestor's descendant, the tyrant pisistratus of athens. one hypothesis, the theory of an homeric school--which would answer our question, "how was the harmony of the picture of life in remote ages preserved in poems composed in several succeeding ages, and in totally altered conditions of life?"--mr. leaf, as we know, rejects. we might suggest, again, that there were written texts handed down from an early period, and preserved in new copies from generation to generation. mr. leaf states his doubt that there were any such texts. "the poems were all this time handed down orally only by tradition among the singers (_sic_), who used to wander over greece reciting them at popular festivals. writing was indeed known through the whole period of epic development" (some four centuries at least), "but it is in the highest degree unlikely that it was ever employed to form a standard text of the epic or _any_ part of it. there can hardly have been any standard text; at best there was a continuous tradition of those parts of the poems which were especially popular, and the knowledge of which was a valuable asset to the professional reciter." now we would not contend for the existence of any [blank space] text much before 600 b.c., and i understand mr. leaf not to deny, now, that there may have been texts of the _odyssey_ and _iliad_ before, say, 600-540 b.c. if cities and reciters had any ancient texts, then texts existed, though not "standard" texts: and by this means the harmony of thought, character, and detail in the poems might be preserved. we do not think that it is "in the highest degree unlikely" that there were no texts. is this one of the many points on which every savant must rely on his own sense of what is "likely"? to this essential point, the almost certain existence of written texts, we return in our conclusion. what we have to account for is not only the relative lack of anachronisms in poems supposed to have been made through a period of at least four hundred years, but also the harmony of the _characters_ in subtle details. some of the characters will be dealt with later; meanwhile it is plain that mr. leaf, when he rejects both the idea of written texts prior to 600-540 b.c., and also the idea of a school charged with the duty of "maintaining a fixed standard," leaves a terrible task to his supposed editor of orally transmitted poems which, he says--if unpreserved by text or school--"must have ended by varying infinitely according to the caprice of their various reciters." [footnote: _companion to the iliad, p. 21._] on that head there can be no doubt; in the supposed circumstances no harmony, no _unus_ color, could have survived in the poems till the days of the sixth century editor. here, then, is another difficulty in the path of the theory that the _iliad_ is the work of four centuries. if it was, we are not enabled to understand how it came to be what it is. no editor could possibly tinker it into the whole which we possess; none could steer clear of many absurd anachronisms. these are found by critics, but it is our hope to prove that they do not exist. note the legend of the making of the "iliad" under pisistratos it has been shown in the text that in 1892 mr. leaf thought the story about the making of the _iliad_ under pisistratus, a legend without authority, while he regarded the traditions concerning an homeric school as sufficient basis for an hypothesis, "which we are bound to make in order to explain the possibility of any theory." in 1900 he entirely reversed his position, the school was abandoned, and the story of pisistratus was accepted. one objection to accepting any of the various legends about the composing and writing out, for the first time, of the _iliad_, in the sixth century, the age of pisistratus, was the silence of aristarchus on the subject. he discussed the authenticity of lines in the _iliad_ which, according to the legend, were interpolated for a political purpose by solon or pisistratus, but, as far as his comments have reached us in the scholia, he never said a word about the tradition of athenian interpolation. now aristarchus must, at least, have known the tradition of the political use of a disputed line, for aristotle writes (_rhetoric_, i. 15) that the athenians, early in the sixth century, quoted _iliad_, ii. 558, to prove their right to salamis. aristarchus also discussed _iliad_, ii. 553, 555, to which the spartans appealed on the question of supreme command against persia (herodotus, vii. 159). again aristarchus said nothing, or nothing that has reached us, about athenian interpolation. once more, odyssey, ii. 631, was said by hereas, a megarian writer, to have been interpolated by pisistratus (plutarch.) but "the scholia that represent the teaching of aristarchus" never make any reference to the alleged dealings of pisistratus with the _iliad_. the silence of aristarchus, however, affords no safe ground of argument to believers or disbelievers in the original edition written out by order of pisistratus. it can never be proved that the scholiasts did not omit what aristarchus said, though we do not know why they should have done so; and it can never be proved that aristarchus was ignorant of the traditions about pisistratus, or that he thought them unworthy of notice. all is matter of conjecture on these points. mr. leaf's conversion to belief in the story that our _iliad_ was practically edited and first committed to writing under pisistratus appears to be due to the probability that aristarchus must have known the tradition. but if he did, there is no proof that he accepted it as historically authentic. there is not, in fact, any proof even that aristarchus must have known the tradition. he had probably read dieuchidas of megara, for "wilamowitz has shown that dieuchidas wrote in the fourth century." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. xix.] but, unluckily, we do not know that dieuchidas stated that the _iliad_ was made and first committed to writing in the sixth century b.c. no mortal knows what dieuchidas said: and, again, what dieuchidas said is not evidence. he wrote as a partisan in a historical dispute. the story about pisistratus and his editor, the practical maker of the _iliad_, is interwoven with a legend about an early appeal, in the beginning of the sixth century b.c., to homer as an historical authority. the athenians and megarians, contending for the possession of the island of salamis, the home of the hero aias, are said to have laid their differences before the spartans (_cir._ 600-580 b.c.). each party quoted homer as evidence. aristotle, who, as we saw, mentions the tale (rhetoric, i. 15), merely says that the athenians cited _iliad_, ii. 558: "aias led and stationed his men where the phalanxes of the athenians were posted." aristarchus condemned this line, not (as far as evidence goes) because there was a tradition that the athenians had interpolated it to prove their point, but because he thought it inconsistent with _iliad_, iii. 230; iv. 251, which, if i may differ from so great a critic, it is not; these two passages deal, not with the position of the camps, but of the men in the field on a certain occasion. but if aristarchus had thought the tradition of athenian interpolation of ii. 558 worthy of notice, he might have mentioned it in support of his opinion. perhaps he did. no reference to his notice has reached us. however this may be, mr. leaf mainly bases his faith in the pisistratean editor (apparently, we shall see, an asiatic greek, residing in athens), on a fragmentary passage of diogenes laertius (third century a.d.), concerned with the tale of homer's being cited about 600-580 b.c. as an authority for the early ownership of salamis. in this text diogenes quotes dieuchidas as saying something about pisistratus in relation to the homeric poems, but what dieuchidas really said is unknown, for a part has dropped out of the text. the text of diogenes laertius runs thus (solon, i. 57): "he (solon) decreed that the homeric poems should be recited by rhapsodists [greek text: ex hypobolaes]" (words of disputed sense), so that where the first reciter left off thence should begin his successor. it was rather solon, then, than pisistratus who brought homer to light ([greek text: ephotisen]), as diogenes says in the fifth book of his _megarica_. and _the lines_ were _especially these_: "they who held athens," &c. (_iliad_, ii. 546-558), the passage on which the athenians rested in their dispute with the megarians. and _what_ "lines were especially these"? mr. leaf fills up the gap in the sense, after "pisistratus" thus, "for it was he" (solon) "who interpolated lines in the _catalogue_, and not pisistratus." he says: "the natural sense of the passage as it stands" (in diogenes laertius) "is this: it was not peisistratos, as is generally supposed, but solon _who collected the scattered homer_ of _his_ day, for he it was who interpolated the lines in the _catalogue of the ships_".... but diogenes neither says for himself nor quotes from dieuchidas anything about "collecting the scattered homer of his day." that pisistratus did so is mr. leafs theory, but there is not a hint about anybody collecting anything in the greek. ritschl, indeed, conjecturally supplying the gap in the text of diogenes, invented the words, "who _collected_ the homeric poems, and inserted some things to please the athenians." but mr. leaf rejects that conjecture as "clearly wrong." then why does he adopt, as "the natural sense of the passage," "it was not peisistratos but solon who _collected_ the scattered homer of his day?" [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. xviii.] the testimony of dieuchidas, as far as we can see in the state of the text, "refers," as mr. monro says, "to the _interpolation_ that has just been mentioned, and need not extend further back." "interpolation is a process that postulates a text in which the additional verses can be inserted," whereas, if i understand mr. leaf, the very first text, in his opinion, was that compiled by the editor for pisistratus. [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. pp. 400 410, especially pp. 408-409.] mr. leaf himself dismisses the story of the athenian appeal to homer for proof of their claim as "a fiction." if, so, it does not appear that ancient commentaries on a fiction are of any value as proof that pisistratus produced the earliest edition of the _iliad_. [footnote: mr. leaf adds that, except in one disputed line (_iliad_, ii. 558) aias "is not, in the _iliad_, encamped next the athenians." his proofs of this odd oversight of the fraudulent interpolator, who should have altered the line, are _iliad_, iv. 327 ff, and xii. 681 ff. in the former passage we find odysseus stationed next to the athenians. but odysseus would have neighbours on either hand. in the second passage we find the athenians stationed next to the boeotians and ionians, but the athenians, too, had neighbours on either side. the arrangement was, on the achaean extreme left, protesilaus's command (he was dead), and that of aias; then the boeotians and ionians, with "the picked men of the athenians"; and then odysseus, on the boeotolono-athenian right; or so the athenians would read the passage. the texts must have seemed favourable to the fraudulent athenian interpolator denounced by the megarians, or he would have altered them. mr. leaf, however, argues that line 558 of book ii. "cannot be original, as is patent from the fact that aias in the rest of the _iliad_ is not encamped next the athenians" (see iv. 327; xiii. 681). the megarians do not seem to have seen it, or they would have cited these passages. but why argue at all about the megarian story if it be a fiction? mr. leaf takes the brief bald mention of aias in _iliad_, ii. 558 as "a mocking cry from athens over the conquest of the island of the aiakidai." but as, in this same _catalogue_, aias is styled "by far the best of warriors" after achilles (ii. 768), while there is no more honourable mention made of diomede than that he had "a loud war cry" (ii. 568), or of menelaus but that he was also sonorous, and while nestor, the ancestor of pisistratus, receives not even that amount of praise (line 601), "the mocking cry from athens" appears a vain imagination.] the lines disputed by the megarians occur in the _catalogue_, and, as to the date and original purpose of the _catalogue_, the most various opinions prevail. in mr. leaf's earlier edition of the _iliad_ (vol. i. p. 37), he says that "nothing convincing has been urged to show" that the _catalogue_ is "of late origin." we know, from the story of solon and the megarians, that the _catalogue_ "was considered a classical work--the domesday book of greece, at a very early date"--say 600-580 b.c. "it agrees with the poems in being pre-dorian" (except in lines 653-670). "there seems therefore to be no valid reason for doubting that it, like the bulk of the _iliad_ and _odyssey_, was composed in achaean times, and carried with the emigrants to the coast of asia minor...." in his new edition (vol. ii. p. 86), mr. leaf concludes that the _catalogue_ "originally formed an introduction to the whole cycle," the compiling of "the whole cycle" being of uncertain date, but very late indeed, on any theory. the author "studiously preserves an ante-dorian standpoint. it is admitted that there can be little doubt that some of the material, at least, is old." these opinions are very different from those expressed by mr. leaf in 1886. he cannot now give "even an approximate date for the composition of the _catalogue_" which, we conceive, must be the latest thing in homer, if it was composed "for that portion of the whole cycle which, as worked up in a separate poem, was called the _kypria_" for the _kypria_ is obviously a very late performance, done as a prelude to the _iliad_. i am unable to imagine how this mutilated passage of diogenes, even if rightly restored, proves that dieuchidas, a writer of the fourth century b.c., alleged that pisistratus made a collection of scattered homeric poems--in fact, made "a standard text." the pisistratean hypothesis "was not so long ago unfashionable, but in the last few years a clear reaction has set in," says mr. leaf. [footnote: _iliad_, i. p. xix.] the reaction has not affected that celebrated scholar, dr. blass, who, with teutonic frankness, calls the pisistratean edition "an absurd legend." [footnote: blass, die _interpolationen_ in der _odyssee_, pp. i, 2. halle, 1904.] meyer says that the alexandrians rejected the pisistratean story "as a worthless fable," differing here from mr. leaf and wilamowitz; and he spurns the legend, saying that it is incredible that the whole greek world would allow the tyrants of athens to palm off a homer on them. [footnote: meyer, _geschichte des alterthums_, ii. 390, 391. 1893.] mr. t. w. allen, an eminent textual scholar, treats the pisistratean editor with no higher respect. in an egyptian papyrus containing a fragment of julius africanus, a christian chronologer, mr. allen finds him talking confidently of the pisistratidae. they "stitched together the rest of the epic," but excised some magical formulae which julius africanus preserves. mr. allen remarks: "the statements about pisistratus belong to a well-established category, that of homeric mythology.... the anecdotes about pisistratus and the poet himself are on a par with dares, who 'wrote the _iliad_ before homer.'" [footnote: _classical review_ xviii. 148.] the editor of pisistratus is hardly in fashion, though that is of no importance. of importance is the want of evidence for the editor, and, as we have shown, the impossible character of the task allotted to him by the theory. as i suppose mr. leaf to insinuate, "fashion" has really nothing to do with the question. people who disbelieve in written texts must, and do, oscillate between the theory of an homeric "school" and the wolfian theory that pisistratus, or solon, or somebody procured the making of the first written text at athens in the sixth century--a theory which fails to account for the harmony of the picture of life in the poems, and, as mr. monro, grote, nutzhorn, and many others argue, lacks evidence. as mr. monro reasons, and as blass states the case bluntly, "solon, or pisistratus, or whoever it was, put a stop, at least as far as athens was concerned, to the mangling of homer" by the rhapsodists or reciters, each anxious to choose a pet passage, and not going through the whole _iliad_ in due sequence. "but the unity existed before the mangling. that this has been so long and so stubbornly misunderstood is no credit to german scholarship: blind uncritical credulity on one side, limitless and arbitrary theorising on the other!" we are not solitary sceptics when we decline to accept the theory of mr. leaf. it is neither bottomed on evidence nor does it account for the facts in the case. that is to say, the evidence appeals to mr. leaf as valid, but is thought worse than inadequate by other great scholars, such as monro and blass; while the fact of the harmony of the picture of life, preserved through four or five centuries, appears to be left without explanation. mr. leaf holds that, in order to organise recitations in due sequence, the making of a text, presenting, for the first time, a due sequence, was necessary. his opponents hold that the sequence already existed, but was endangered by the desultory habits of the rhapsodists. we must here judge each for himself; there is no court of final appeal. i confess to feeling some uncertainty about the correctness of my statement of mr. leaf's opinions. he and i both think an early attic "recension" probable, or almost certain. but (see' "conclusion") i regard such recension as distinct from the traditional "edition" of pisistratus. mr. leaf, i learn, does not regard the "edition" as having "made" the _iliad_; yet his descriptions of the processes and methods of his pisistratean editor correspond to my idea of the "making" of our _iliad_ as it stands. see, for example, mr. leaf's introduction to _iliad_, book ii. he will not even insist on the early attic as the first _written_ text; if it was not, its general acceptance seems to remain a puzzle. he discards the idea of one homeric "school" of paramount authority, but presumes that, as recitation was a profession, there must have been schools. we do not hear of them or know the nature of their teaching. the beauvais "school" of _jongleurs_ in lent (fourteenth century a.d.) seems to have been a holiday conference of strollers. chapter iv loose feudalism: the over-lord in "iliad," books i. and ii. we now try to show that the epics present an historical unity, a complete and harmonious picture of an age, in its political, social, legal, and religious aspects; in its customs, and in its military equipment. a long epic can only present an unity of historical ideas if it be the work of one age. wandering minstrels, living through a succession of incompatible ages, civic, commercial, democratic, could not preserve, without flaw or failure, the attitude, in the first place, of the poet of feudal princes towards an over-lord who rules them by undisputed right divine, but rules weakly, violently, unjustly, being subject to gusts of arrogance, and avarice, and repentance. late poets not living in feudal society, and unfamiliar alike with its customary law, its jealousy of the over-lord, its conservative respect for his consecrated function, would inevitably miss the proper tone, and fail in some of the many [blank space] of the feudal situation. this is all the more certain, if we accept mr. leaf's theory that each poet-rhapsodist's _répertoire_ varied from the _répertoires_ of the rest. there could be no unity of treatment in their handling of the character and position of the over-lord and of the customary law that regulates his relations with his peers. again, no editor of 540 b.c. could construct an harmonious picture of the over-lord in relation to the princes out of the fragmentary _répertoires_ of strolling rhapsodists, which now lay before him in written versions. if the editor could do this, he was a man of shakespearian genius, and had minute knowledge of a dead society. this becomes evident when, in place of examining the _iliad_ through microscopes, looking out for discrepancies, we study it in its large lines as a literary whole. the question being, is the _iliad_ a literary whole or a mere literary mosaic? we must ask "what, taking it provisionally as a literary whole, are the qualities of the poet as a painter of what we may call feudal society?" choosing the part of the over-lord agamemnon, we must not forget that he is one of several analogous figures in the national poetry and romance of other feudal ages. of that great analogous figure, charlemagne, and of his relations with his peers in the earlier and later french mediaeval epics we shall later speak. another example is arthur, in some romances "the blameless king," in others _un roi fainéant_. the parallel irish case is found in the irish saga of diarmaid and grainne. we read mr. o'grady's introduction on the position of eionn mac cumhail, the legendary over-lord of ireland, the agamemnon of the celts. "fionn, like many men in power, is variable; he is at times magnanimous, at other times tyrannical and petty. diarmaid, oisin, oscar, and caoilte mac rohain are everywhere the [greek: kaloi kachotoi] of the fenians; of them we never hear anything bad." [footnote: _transactions of the ossianic_ society, vol. iii. p. 39.] human nature eternally repeats itself in similar conditions of society, french, norse, celtic, and achaean. "we never hear anything bad" of diomede, odysseus, or aias, and the evil in achilles's resentment up to a certain point is legal, and not beyond what the poet thinks natural and pardonable in his circumstances. the poet's view of agamemnon is expressed in the speeches and conduct of the peers. in book i. we see the bullying truculence of agamemnon, wreaked first on the priest of apollo, chryses, then in threats against the prophet chalcas, then in menaces against any prince on whom he chooses to avenge his loss of fair chryseis, and, finally, in the seizure of briseis from achilles. this part of the first book of the _iliad_ is confessedly original, and there is no varying, throughout the epic, from the strong and delicate drawing of an historical situation, and of a complex character. agamemnon is truculent, and eager to assert his authority, but he is also possessed of a heavy sense of his responsibilities, which often unmans him. he has a legal right to a separate "prize of honour" (geras) after each capture of spoil. considering the wrath of apollo for the wrong done in refusing his priest's offered ransom for his daughter, agamemnon will give her back, "if that is better; rather would i see my folks whole than perishing." [footnote: _iliad_, i. 115-117.] here we note points of feudal law and of kingly character. the giving and taking of ransom exists as it did in the middle ages; ransom is refused, death is dealt, as the war becomes more fierce towards its close. agamemnon has sense enough to waive his right to the girlish prize, for the sake of his people, but is not so generous as to demand no compensation. but there are no fresh spoils to apportion, and the over-lord threatens to take the prize of one of his peers, even of achilles. thereon achilles does what was frequently done in the feudal age of western europe, he "renounces his fealty," and will return to phthia. he adds insult, "thou dog-face!" the whole situation, we shall show, recurs again and again in the epics of feudal france, the later epics of feudal discontent. agamemnon replies that achilles may do as he pleases. "i have others by my side that shall do me honour, and, above all, zeus, lord of counsel" (i. 175). he rules, literally, by divine right, and we shall see that, in the french feudal epics, as in homer, this claim of divine right is granted, even in the case of an insolent and cowardly over-lord. achilles half draws "his great sword," one of the long, ponderous cut-and-thrust bronze swords of which we have actual examples from mycenae and elsewhere. he is restrained by athene, visible only to him. "with words, indeed," she says, "revile him .... hereafter shall goodly gifts come to thee, yea, in threefold measure...." gifts of atonement for "surquedry," like that of agamemnon, are given and received in the french epics, for example, in the [blank space]. the _iliad_ throughout exhibits much interest in such gifts, and in the customary law as to their acceptance, and other ritual or etiquette of reconciliation. this fact, it will be shown, accounts for a passage which critics reject, and which is tedious to our taste, as it probably was tedious to the age of the supposed late poets themselves. (book xix.). but the taste of a feudal audience, as of the audience of the saga men, delighted in "realistic" descriptions of their own customs and customary law, as in descriptions of costume and armour. this is fortunate for students of customary law and costume, but wearies hearers and readers who desire the action to advance. passages of this kind would never be inserted by late poets, who had neither the knowledge of, nor any interest in, the subjects. to return to achilles, he is now within his right; the moral goddess assures him of that, and he is allowed to give the reins to his tongue, as he does in passages to which the mediaeval epics offer many parallels. in the mediaeval epics, as in homer, there is no idea of recourse to a duel between the over-lord and his peer. achilles accuses agamemnon of drunkenness, greed, and poltroonery. he does not return home, but swears by the sceptre that agamemnon shall rue his _outrecuidance_ when hector slays the host. by the law of the age achilles remains within his right. his violent words are not resented by the other peers. they tacitly admit, as athene admits, that achilles has the right, being so grievously injured, to "renounce his fealty," till agamemnon makes apology and gives gifts of atonement. such, plainly, is the unwritten feudal law, which gives to the over-lord the lion's share of booty, the initiative in war and council, and the right to command; but limits him by the privilege of the peers to renounce their fealty under insufferable provocation. in no book is agamemnon so direfully insulted as in the first, which is admitted to be of the original "kernel." elsewhere the sympathy of the poet occasionally enables him to feel the elements of pathos in the position of the over-tasked king of men. as concerns the apology and the gifts of atonement, the poet has feudal customary law and usage clearly before his eyes. he knows exactly what is due, and the limits of the rights of over-lord and prince, matters about which the late ionian poets could only pick up information by a course of study in constitutional history--the last thing they were likely to attempt--unless we suppose that they all kept their eyes on the "kernel," and that steadily, through centuries, generations of strollers worked on the lines laid down in that brief poem. thus the poet of book ix.--one of "the latest expansions,"--thoroughly understands the legal and constitutional situation, as between agamemnon and achilles. or rather all the poets who collaborated in book ix., which "had grown by a process of accretion," [footnote: leaf, iliad, vol. i. p. 371.] understood the legal situation. returning to the poet's conception of agamemnon, we find in the character of agamemnon himself the key to the difficulties which critics discover in the second book. the difficulty is that when zeus, won over to the cause of achilles by thetis, sends a false dream to agamemnon, the dream tells the prince that he shall at once take troy, and bids him summon the host to arms. but agamemnon, far from doing that, summons the host to a peaceful assembly, with the well-known results of demoralisation. mr. leaf explains the circumstances on his own theory of expansions compiled into a confused whole by a late editor. he thinks that probably there were two varying versions even of this earliest book of the poem. in one (a), the story went on from the quarrel between agamemnon and achilles, to the holding of a general assembly "to consider the altered state of affairs." this is the assembly of book h, but debate, in version a, was opened by thersites, not by agamemnon, and thersites proposed instant flight! that was probably the earlier version. in the other early version (b), after the quarrel between the chiefs, the story did not, as in a, go on straight to the assembly, but achilles appealed to his mother, the fair sea-goddess, as in our iliad, and she obtained from zeus, as in the actual _iliad_, his promise to honour achilles by giving victory, in his absence, to the trojans. the poet of version b, in fact, created the beautiful figure of thetis, so essential to the development of the tenderness that underlies the ferocity of achilles. the other and earliest poet, who treated of the wrath of the author of version a, neglected that opportunity with all that it involved, and omitted the purpose of zeus, which is mentioned in the fifth line of the epic. the editor of 540 b.c., seeing good in both versions, a and b, "combined his information," and produced books i. and ii. of the _iliad_ as they stand. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 47.] mr. leaf suggests that "there is some ground for supposing that the oldest version of the wrath of achilles did not contain the promise of zeus to thetis; it was a tale played exclusively on the earthly stage." [footnote: _ibid_, vol. i. p. xxiii.] in that case the author of the oldest form (a) must have been a poet very inferior indeed to the later author of b who took up and altered his work. in _his_ version, book i. does not end with the quarrel of the princes, but achilles receives, with all the courtesy of his character, the unwelcome heralds of agamemnon, and sends briseis with them to the over-lord. he then with tears appeals to his goddess-mother, thetis of the sea, who rose from the grey mere like a mist, leaving the sea deeps where she dwelt beside her father, the ancient one of the waters. then sat she face to face with her son as he let the tears down fall, and caressed him, saying, "child, wherefore weepest thou, for what sorrow of heart? hide it not, tell it to me; that i may know it as well as thou." here the poet strikes the keynote of the character of achilles, the deadly in war, the fierce in council, who weeps for his lost lady and his wounded honour, and cries for help to his mother, as little children cry. such is the achilles of the _iliad_ throughout and consistently, but such he was not to the mind of mr. leaf's probably elder poet, the author of version a. thetis, in version b, promises to persuade zeus to honour achilles by making agamemnon rue his absence, and, twelve days after the quarrel, wins the god's consent. in book ii. zeus reflects on his promise, and sends a false dream to beguile agamemnon, promising that now he shall take troy. agamemnon, while asleep, is full of hope; but when he wakens he dresses in mufti, in a soft doublet, a cloak, and sandals; takes his sword (swords were then worn as part of civil costume), and the ancestral sceptre, which he wields in peaceful assemblies. day dawns, and "he bids the heralds...." a break here occurs, according to the theory. here (_iliad_, book ii., line 50) the kernel ceases, mr. leaf says, and the editor of 540 b.c. plays his pranks for a while. the kernel (or one of the _two_ kernels), we are to take up again at book ii., 443-483, and thence "skip" to xi. 56, and now "we have a narrative masterly in conception and smooth in execution," [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 47.] says mr. leaf. this kernel is kernel b, probably the later kernel of the pair, that in which achilles appeals to his lady mother, who wins from zeus the promise to cause achaean defeat, till achilles is duly honoured. the whole epic turns on this promise of zeus, as announced in the fifth, sixth, and seventh lines of the very first book. if kernel a is the first kernel, the poet left out the essence of the plot he had announced. however, let us first examine probable kernel b, reading, as advised, book ii. 1-50, [blank space]; xi. 56 ff. we left agamemnon (though the dream bade him summon the host to arms) dressed in _civil costume_. his ancestral sceptre in his hand, he is going to hold a deliberative assembly of the unarmed host. his attire proves that fact ([greek: _prepodaes de ae stolae to epi boulaen exionti_], says the scholiast). then if we skip, as advised, to ii. 443-483 he bids the heralds call the host not to peaceful council, for which his costume is appropriate, but to _war_! the host gathers, "and in their midst the lord agamemnon,"--still in civil costume, with his sceptre (he has not changed his attire as far as we are told)--"in face and eyes like zeus; in waist like ares" (god of war); "in breast like poseidon,"--yet, for all that we are told, entirely unarmed! the host, however, were dressed "in innumerable bronze," "war was sweeter to them than to depart in their ships to their dear native land,"--so much did athene encourage them. but nobody had been speaking of flight, in the kernel b: that proposal was originally made by thersites, in kernel a, and was attributed to agamemnon in the part of book ii. where the editor blends a and b. this part, at present, mr. leaf throws aside as a very late piece of compilation. turning next, as directed, to xi. 56, we find the trojans deploying in arms, and the hosts encounter with fury--agamemnon still, for all that appears, in the raiment of peace, and with the sceptre of constitutional monarchy. "in he rushed, first of all, and slew bienor," and many other gentlemen of troy, not with his sceptre! clearly all this is the reverse of "a narrative masterly in conception and smooth in execution:" it is an impossible narrative. mr. leaf has attempted to disengage one of two forms of the old original poem from the parasitic later growths; he has promised to show us a smooth and masterly narrative, and the result is a narrative on which no achasan poet could have ventured. in ii. 50 the heralds are bidden [greek: _kurussein_], that is to summon the host--to _what_? to a peaceful assembly, as agamemnon's costume proves, says the next line (ii. 51), but that is excised by mr. leaf, and we go on to ii. 443, and the reunited passage now reads, "agamemnon bade the loud heralds" (ii. 50) "call the achaeans to battle" (ii. 443), and they came, in harness, but their leader--when did he exchange chiton, cloak, and sceptre for helmet, shield, and spear? a host appears in arms; a king who set out with sceptre and doublet is found with a spear, in bronze armour: and not another word is said about the dream of agamemnon. it is perfectly obvious and certain that the two pieces of the broken kernel b do not fit together at all. nor is this strange, if the kernel was really broken and endured the insertion of matter enough to fill nine books (il-xl). if kernel b really contained book ii., line 50, as mr. leaf avers, if agamemnon, as in that line (50) "bade the clear-voiced heralds do...." something--what he bade them do was, necessarily, as his peaceful costume proves, to summon the peaceful assembly which he was to moderate with his sceptre. at such an assembly, or at a preliminary council of chiefs, he would assuredly speak of his dream, as he does in the part excised. mr. leaf, if he will not have a peaceful assembly as part of kernel b, must begin his excision at the middle of line 42, in ii., where agamemnon wakens; and must make him dress not in mufti but in armour, and call the host of the achaeans to arm, as the dream bade him do, and as he does in ii. 443. perhaps we should then excise ii. 45 2, 45 3, with the reference to the plan of retreat, for _that_ is part of kernel a where there was no promise of zeus, and no dream sent to agamemnon. then from ii. 483, the description of the glorious armed aspect of agamemnon, mr. leaf may pass to xi. 56, the account of the trojans under hector, of the battle, of the prowess of agamemnon, inspired by the dream which he, contrary to homeric and french epic custom, has very wisely mentioned to nobody--that is, in the part not excised. this appears to be the only method by which mr. leaf can restore the continuity of his kernel b. though mr. leaf has failed to fit book xi. to any point in book ii., of course it does not follow that book xi. cannot be a continuation of the original _wrath_ of _achilles_ (version b). if so, we understand why agamemnon plucks up heart, in book xi., and is the chief cause of a temporary trojan reverse. he relies on the dream sent from zeus in the opening lines of book ii., the dream which was not in kernel a; the dream which he communicated to nobody; the dream conveying the promise that he should at once take troy. this is perhaps a tenable theory, though agamemnon had much reason to doubt whether the host would obey his command to arm, but an alternative theory of why and wherefore agamemnon does great feats of valour, in book xi., will later be propounded. note that the events of books xl.-xviii., by mr. leaf's theory, all occur on the very day after thetis (according to kernel b)' [79] obtains from zeus his promise to honour achilles by the discomfiture of the achaeans; they have suffered nothing till that moment, as far as we learn, from the absence of achilles and his 2500 men: allowing for casualties, say 2000. so far we have traced--from books i. and ii. to book xi.--the fortunes of kernel b, of the supposed later of two versions of the opening of the _iliad_. but there may have been a version (a) probably earlier, we have been told, in which achilles did not appeal to his mother, nor she to zeus, and zeus did not promise victory to the trojans, and sent no false dream of success to agamemnon. what were the fortunes of that oldest of all old kernels? in this version (a) agamemnon, having had no dream, summoned a peaceful assembly to discuss the awkwardness caused by the mutiny of achilles. the host met (_iliad,_ ii. 87-99). here we pass from line 99 to 212-242: thersites it is who opens the debate, (in version a) insults agamemnon, and advises flight. the army rushed off to launch the ships, as in ii. 142-210, and were brought back by odysseus, who made a stirring speech, and was well backed by agamemnon, urging to battle. version a appears to us to have been a version that no heroic audience would endure. a low person like thersites opens a debate in an assembly called by the over-lord; this could not possibly pass unchallenged among listeners living in the feudal age. when a prince called an assembly, he himself opened the debate, as achilles does in book i. 54-67. that a lewd fellow, the buffoon and grumbler of the host, of "the people," nameless and silent throughout the epic, should rush in and open debate in an assembly convoked by the over-lord, would have been regarded by feudal hearers, or by any hearers with feudal traditions, as an intolerable poetical license. thersites would have been at once pulled down and beaten; the host would not have rushed to the ships on _his_ motion. any feudal audience would know better than to endure such an impossibility; they would have asked, "how could thersites speak--without the sceptre?" as the poem stands, and ought to stand, nobody less than the over-lord, acting within his right, ([greek: ae themis esti] ii. 73), could suggest the flight of the host, and be obeyed. it is the absolute demoralisation of the host, in consequence of the strange test of their lord, agamemnon, making a feigned proposal to fly, and it is their confused, bewildered return to the assembly under the persuasions of odysseus, urged by athene, that alone, in the poem, give thersites his unique opportunity to harangue. when the over-lord had called an assembly the first word, of course, was for to speak, as he does in the poem as it stands. that thersifes should rise in the arrogance bred by the recent disorderly and demoralised proceedings is one thing; that he should open the debate when excitement was eager to hear agamemnon, and before demoralisation set in, is quite another. we never hear again of thersites, or of any one of the commonalty, daring to open his mouth in an assembly. thersites sees his one chance, the chance of a life time, and takes it; because agamemnon, by means of the test--a proposal to flee homewards--which succeeded, it is said, in the case of cortès,--has reduced the host, already discontented, to a mob. before agamemnon thus displayed his ineptitude, as he often does later, thersites had no chance. all this appears sufficiently obvious, if we put ourselves at the point of view of the original listeners. thersites merely continues, in full assembly, the mutinous babble which he has been pouring out to his neighbours during the confused rush to launch the ships and during the return produced by the influence of odysseus. the poet says so himself (_iliad_, ii. 212). "the rest sat down ... only thersites still chattered on." no original poet could manage the situation in any other way. we have now examined mr. leaf's two supposed earliest versions of the beginning of the _iliad_. his presumed earlier version (a), with no thetis, no promise of zeus, and no dream, and with thersites opening debate, is jejune, unpoetical, and omits the gentler and most winning aspect of the character of achilles, while it could not possibly have been accepted by a feudal audience for the reasons already given. his presumed later version (b), with thetis, zeus, and the false dream, cannot be, or certainly has not been, brought by mr. leaf into congruous connection with book xi., and it results in the fighting of the _unarmed_ agamemnon, which no poet could have been so careless as to invent. agamemnon could not go into battle without helmet, shield, and spears (the other armour we need not dwell upon here), and thersites could not have opened a debate when the over-lord had called the assembly, nor could he have moved the chiefs to prepare for flight, unless, as in the actual _iliad_, they had already been demoralised by the result of the feigned proposal of flight by agamemnon, and its effect upon the host. probably every reader who understands heroic society, temper, and manners will, so far, agree with us. our own opinion is that the difficulties in the poem are caused partly by the poet's conception of the violent, wavering, excitable, and unstable character of agamemnon; partly by some accident, now indiscoverable, save by conjecture, which has happened to the text. the story in the actual _iliad_ is that zeus, planning disaster for the achaeans, in accordance with his promise to thetis, sends a false dream, to tell agamemnon that he will take troy instantly. he is bidden by the dream to summon the host to arms. agamemnon, _still asleep_, "has in his mind things not to be fulfilled: him seemeth that he shall take priam's town that very day" (ii. 36, 37). "then he awoke" (ii. 41), and, obviously, was no longer so sanguine, once awake! being a man crushed by his responsibility, and, as commander-in-chief, extremely timid, though personally brave, he disobeys the dream, dresses in civil costume, and summons the host to a _peaceful_ assembly, not to war, as the dream bade him do. probably he thought that the host was disaffected, and wanted to argue with them, in place of commanding. here it is that the difficulty comes in, and our perplexity is increased by our ignorance of the regular procedure in homeric times. was the host not in arms and fighting every day, when there was no truce? there seems to have been no armistice after the mutiny of achilles, for we are told that, in the period between his mutiny and the day of the dream of agamemnon, achilles "was neither going to the assembly, nor into battle, but wasted his heart, abiding there, longing for war and the slogan" (i. 489, 492). thus it seems that war went on, and that assemblies were being held, in the absence of achilles. it appears, however, that the fighting was mere skirmishing and raiding, no general onslaught was attempted; and from book ii. _73_, 83 it seems to have been a matter of doubt, with agamemnon and nestor, whether the army would venture a pitched battle. it also appears, from the passage cited (i. 489, 492) that assemblies were being regularly held; we are told that achilles did not attend them. yet, when we come to the assembly (ii. 86-100) it seems to have been a special and exciting affair, to judge by the brilliant picture of the crowds, the confusion, and the cries. nothing of the sort is indicated in the meeting of the assembly in i. _54-5_ 8. why is there so much excitement at the assembly of book ii.? partly because it was summoned _at_ dawn, whereas the usual thing was for the host to meet in arms before fighting on the plain or going on raids; assemblies were held when the day's work was over. the host, therefore, when summoned to an assembly _at dawn_, expects to hear of something out of the common--as the mutiny of achilles suggests--and is excited. we must ask, then, why does agamemnon, after the dream has told him merely to summon the host to arm--a thing of daily routine--call a deliberative morning assembly, a thing clearly not of routine? if agamemnon is really full of confidence, inspired by the dream, why does he determine, not to do what is customary, call the men to arms, but as jeanne d'arc said to the dauphin, to "hold such long and weary councils"? mr. jevons speaks of agamemnon's "confidence in the delusive dream" as at variance with his proceedings, and would excise ii. 35-41, "the only lines which represent agamemnon as confidently believing in the dream." [footnote: _journal_ of _hellenic_ studies, vol. vii. pp. 306, 307.] but the poet never once says that agamemnon, awake, did believe confidently in the dream! agamemnon dwelt with hope _while_ asleep; when he wakened--he went and called a peaceful morning assembly, though the dream bade him call to arms. he did not dare to risk his authority. this was exactly in keeping with his character. the poet should have said, "when he woke, the dream appeared to him rather poor security for success" (saying so in poetic language, of course), and then there would be no difficulty in the summoning of an assembly at dawn. but either the poet expected us to understand the difference between the hopes of agamemnon sleeping, and the doubts of agamemnon waking to chill realities--an experience common to all of us who dream--or some explanatory lines have been dropped out--one or two would have cleared up the matter. if i am right, the poet has not been understood. people have not observed that agamemnon hopes while asleep, and doubts, and acts on his doubt, when awake. thus mr. leaf writes: "elated by the dream, as we are led to suppose, agamemnon summons the army--to lead them into battle? nothing of the sort; he calls them to assembly." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 46.] but we ought not to have been led to suppose that the waking agamemnon was so elated as the sleeping agamemnon. he was "disillusioned" on waking; his conduct proves it; he did not know what to think about the dream; he did not know how the host would take the dream; he doubted whether they would fight at his command, so he called an assembly. mr. jevons very justly cites a parallel case. grote has remarked that in book vii. of herodotus, "the dream sent by the gods to frighten xerxes when about to recede from his project," has "a marked parallel in the _iliad_." thus xerxes, after the defection of artabanus, was despondent, like agamemnon after the mutiny of achilles, and was about to recede from his project. to both a delusive dream is sent urging them to proceed. xerxes calls an assembly, however, and says that he will not proceed. why? because, says herodotus, "when day came, he thought nothing of his dream." agamemnon, once awake, thought doubtfully of _his_ dream; he called a privy council, told the princes about his dream--of which nestor had a very dubious opinion--and said that he would try the temper of the army by proposing instant flight: the chiefs should restrain the men if they were eager to run away. now the epic prose narrative of herodotus is here clearly based on _iliad_, ii., which herodotus must have understood as i do. but in homer there is no line to say--and one line or two would have been enough--that agamemnon, when awake, doubted, like xerxes, though agamemnon, when asleep, had been confident. the necessary line, for all that we know, still existed in the text used by herodotus. homer may lose a line as well as dieuchidas of megara, or rather diogenes laertius. juvenal lost a whole passage, re-discovered by mr. winstedt in a bodleian manuscript. if homer expected modern critics to note the delicate distinction between agamemnon asleep and agamemnon awake, or to understand agamemnon's character, he expected too much. [footnote: cf. jevons, _journal of hellenic studies_, vol. vii. pp. 306, 307.] the poet then treats the situation on these lines: agamemnon, awake and free from illusion, does not obey the dream, does _not_ call the army to war; he takes a middle course. in the whole passage the poet's main motive, as mr. monro remarks with obvious truth, is "to let his audience become acquainted with the temper and spirit of the army as it was affected by the long siege ... and by the events of the first book." [footnote: monro, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 261.] the poet could not obtain his object if agamemnon merely gave the summons to battle; and he thinks agamemnon precisely the kind of waverer who will call, first the privy council of the chiefs, and then an assembly. herein the homesick host will display its humours, as it does with a vengeance. agamemnon next tells his dream to the chiefs (if he had a dream of this kind he would most certainly tell it), and adds (as has been already stated) that he will first test the spirit of the army by a feigned proposal of return to greece, while the chiefs are to restrain them if they rush to launch the ships. nestor hints that there is not much good in attending to dreams; however, this is the dream of the over-lord, who is the favoured of zeus. agamemnon next, addressing the assembly, says that posterity will think it a shameful thing that the achaeans raised the siege of a town with a population much smaller than their own army; but allies from many cities help the trojans, and are too strong for him, whether posterity understands that or not. "let us flee with our ships!" on this the host break up, in a splendid passage of poetry, and rush to launch the ships, the passion of _nostalgie_ carrying away even the chiefs, it appears--a thing most natural in the circumstances. but athene finds odysseus in grief: "neither laid he any hand upon his ship," as the others did, and she encouraged him to stop the flight. this he does, taking the sceptre of agamemnon from his unnerved hand. he goes about reminding the princes "have we not heard agamemnon's real intention in council?" (ii. 188-197), and rating the common sort. the assembly meets again in great confusion; thersites seizes the chance to be insolent, and is beaten by odysseus. the host then arms for battle. the poet has thus shown agamemnon in the colours which he wears consistently all through the _iliad_. he has, as usual, contrasted with him odysseus, the type of a wise and resolute man. this contrast the poet maintains without fail throughout. he has shown us the temper of the weary, home-sick army, and he has persuaded us that he knows how subtle, dangerous, and contagious a thing is military panic. thus, at least, i venture to read the passage, which, thus read, is perfectly intelligible. agamemnon is no personal coward, but the burden of the safety of the host overcomes him later, and he keeps suggesting flight in the ships, as we shall see. suppose, then, we read on from ii. 40 thus: "the dream left him thinking of things not to be, even that on this day he shall take the town of priam.... but he awoke from sleep with the divine voice ringing in his ears. (_then it seemed him that some dreams are true and_ some _false, for all do_ not _come through the gate of_ horn.) so he arose and sat up and did on his soft tunic, and his great cloak, and grasped his ancestral sceptre ... and bade the clear-voiced heralds summon the achaeans of the long locks to the deliberative assembly." he then, as in ii. 53-75 told his dream to the preliminary council, and proposed that he should try the temper of the host by proposing flight--which, if it began, the chiefs were to restrain--before giving orders to arm. the test of the temper of the host acted as it might be expected to act; all rushed to launch the ships, and the princes were swept away in the tide of flight, agamemnon himself merely looking on helpless. the panic was contagious; only odysseus escaped its influence, and redeemed the honour of the achaeans, as he did again on a later day. the passage certainly has its difficulties. but erhardt expresses the proper state of the case, after giving his analysis. "the hearer's imagination is so captured, first by the dream, then by the brawling assembly, by the rush to the ships, by the intervention of odysseus, by the punishment of thersites--all these living pictures follow each other so fleetly before the eyes that we have scarcely time to make objections." [footnote: _die enstehung der homerische gedichte_, p. 29.]. the poet aimed at no more and no less effect than he has produced, and no more should be required by any one, except by that anachronism--"the analytical reader." _he_ has "time to make objections": the poet's audience had none; and he must be criticised from their point of view. homer did not sing for analytical readers, for the modern professor; he could not possibly conceive that time would bring such a being into existence. to return to the character of agamemnon. in moments of encouragement agamemnon is a valiant fighter, few better spearmen, yet "he attains not to the first three," achilles, aias, diomede. but agamemnon is unstable as water; again and again, as in book ii., the lives and honour of the achaeans are saved in the over-lord's despite by one or other of the peers. the whole _iliad_, with consistent uniformity, pursues the scheme of character and conduct laid down in the two first books. it is guided at once by feudal allegiance and feudal jealousy, like the _chansons de geste_ and the early sagas or romances of ireland. a measure of respect for agamemnon, even of sympathy, is preserved; he is not degraded as the kings and princes are often degraded on the attic stage, and even in the cyclic poems. would wandering ionian reciters at fairs have maintained this uniformity? would the tyrant pisistratus have made his literary man take this view? chapter v agamemnon in the later "iliad" in the third book, agamemnon receives the compliments due to his supremacy, aspect, and valour from the lips of helen and priam. there are other warriors taller by a head, and odysseus was shorter than he by a head, so agamemnon was a man of middle stature. he is "beautiful and royal" of aspect; "a good king and a mighty spearman," says helen. the interrupted duel between menelaus and paris follows, and then the treacherous wounding of menelaus by pandarus. one of agamemnon's most sympathetic characteristics is his intense love of his brother, for whose sake he has made the war. he shudders on seeing the arrow wound, but consoles menelaus by the certainty that troy will fall, for the trojans have broken the solemn oath of truce. zeus "doth fulfil at last, and men make dear amends." but with characteristic inconsistency he discourages menelaus by a picture of many a proud trojan leaping on his tomb, while the host will return home-an idea constantly present to agamemnon's mind. he is always the first to propose flight, though he will "return with shame" to mycenae. menelaus is of much better cheer: "be of good courage, [blank space] all the host of the [misprint]"--a thing which agamemnon does habitually, though he is not a personal poltroon. as menelaus has only a slight flesh wound after all, and as the trojans are doomed men, agamemnon is now "eager for glorious battle." he encourages the princes, but, of all men, rebukes odysseus as "last at a fray and first at a feast": such is his insolence, for which men detest him. this is highly characteristic in agamemnon, who has just been redeemed from ruin by odysseus. rebuked by odysseus, he "takes back his word" as usual, and goes on to chide diomede as better at making speeches than at fighting! but diomede made no answer, "having respect to the chiding of the revered king." he even rebukes the son of capaneus for answering agamemnon haughtily. diomede, however, does not forget; he bides his time. he now does the great deeds of his day of valour (book v.). agamemnon meanwhile encourages the host. during books v., vi. agamemnon's business is "to bid the rest keep fighting." when hector, in book vii., challenges any achaean, nobody volunteers except menelaus, who has a strong sense of honour. agamemnon restrains him, and lots are cast: the host pray that the lot may fall on aias, diomede, or agamemnon (vii. 179-180). thus the over-lord is acknowledged to be a man of his hands, especially good at hurling the spear, as we see again in book xxiii. a truce is proposed for the burial of the dead, and paris offers to give up the wealth that he brought to troy, and more, if the achaeans will go home, but helen he will not give up. we expect agamemnon to answer as becomes him. but no! all are silent, till diomede rises. they will not return, he says, even if helen be restored, for even a fool knows that troy is doomed, because of the broken oath. the rest shout acquiescence, and agamemnon refuses the compromise. apparently he would not have disdained it, but for diomede's reply. on the following day the trojans have the better in the battle, and agamemnon "has no heart to stand," nor have some of his peers. but diomede has more courage, and finally agamemnon begins to call to the host to fight, but breaks down, weeps, and prays to zeus "that we ourselves at least flee and escape;" he is not an encouraging commander-in-chief! zeus, in pity, sends a favourable omen; aias fights well; night falls, and the trojans camp on the open plain. agamemnon, in floods of tears, calls an assembly, and proposes to "return to argos with dishonour." "let us flee with our ships to our dear native land, for now shall we never take wide-wayed troy," all are silent, till diomede rises and reminds agamemnon that "thou saidst i was no man of war, but a coward." (in book v.; we are now in book ix.) "zeus gave thee the honour of the sceptre above all men, but valour he gave thee not.... go thy way; thy way is before thee, and thy ships stand beside the sea. but all the other flowing-haired achaeans will tarry here until we waste troy." nestor advises agamemnon to set an advanced guard, which that martialist had never thought of doing, and to discuss matters over supper. a force of 700 men, under meriones and the son of nestor, was posted between the foss and the wall round the camp; the council met, and nestor advised agamemnon to approach achilles with gentle words and gifts of atonement. agamemnon, full of repentance, acknowledges his folly and offers enormous atonement. heralds and three ambassadors are sent; and how achilles received them, with perfect courtesy, but with absolute distrust of agamemnon and refusal of his gifts, sending the message that he will fight only when fire comes to his own ships, we know. achilles is now entirely in the wrong, and the over-lord is once more within his right. he has done all, or more than all, that customary law demands. in book ix. phoenix states the case plainly. "if agamemnon brought thee not gifts, and promised thee more hereafter, ... then were i not he that should bid thee cast aside thine anger, and save the argives...." (ix. 515-517). the case so stands that, if achilles later relents and fights, the gifts of atonement will no longer be due to him, and he "will not be held in like honour" (ix. 604). the poet knows intimately, and, like his audience, is keenly interested in the details of the customary law. we cannot easily suppose this frame of mind and this knowledge in a late poet addressing a late ionian audience. the ambassadors return to agamemnon; their evil tidings are received in despairing silence. but diomede bids agamemnon take heart and fight next day, with his host arrayed "before the ships" (ix. 708). this appears to counsel defensive war; but, in fact, and for reasons, when it comes to fighting they do battle in the open. the next book (x.) is almost universally thought a late interpolation; an opinion elsewhere discussed (see [blank space]). let us, then, say with mr. leaf that the book begins with "exaggerated despondency" and ends with "hasty exultation," in consequence of a brilliant camisade, wherein odysseus and diomede massacre a thracian contingent. our point is that the poet carefully (see _the doloneia_) continues the study of agamemnon in despondency, and later, by his "hasty exultation," preludes to the valour which the over-lord displays in book xi. the poet knows that something in the way of personal valour is due to agamemnon's position; he fights brilliantly, receives a flesh wound, retires, and is soon proposing a general flight in his accustomed way. when the trojans, in book xiv., are attacking the ships, agamemnon remarks that he fears the disaffection of his whole army (xiv. 49, 51), and, as for the coming defeat, that he "knew it," even when zeus helped the greeks. they are all to perish far from argos. let them drag the ships to the sea, moor them with stones, and fly, "for there is no shame in fleeing from ruin, even in the night. better doth he fare who flees from trouble than he that is overtaken." it is now the turn of odysseus again to save the honour of the army. "be silent, lest some other of the achaeans hear this word, that no man should so much as suffer to pass through his mouth.... and now i wholly scorn thy thoughts, such a word hast thou uttered." on this agamemnon instantly repents. "right sharply hast thou touched my heart with thy stern reproof:" he has not even the courage of his nervousness. the combat is now in the hands of aias and patroclus, who is slain. agamemnon, who is wounded, does not reappear till book xix., when achilles, anxious to fight and avenge patroclus at once, without formalities of reconciliation, professes his desire to let bygones be bygones. agamemnon excuses his insolence to achilles as an inspiration of ate: a predestined fault--"not i am the cause, but zeus and destiny." odysseus, to clinch the reunion and fulfil customary law, advises agamemnon to bring out the gifts of atonement (the gifts prepared in book ix.), after which the right thing is for him to give a feast of reconciliation, "that achilles may have nothing lacking of his right." [footnote: book xix. 179, 180.] the case is one which has been provided for by customary law in every detail. mr. leaf argues that all this part must be late, because of the allusion to the gifts offered in book ix. but we reply, with mr. monro, that the ninth book is "almost necessary to any achilleis." the question is, would a late editor or poet know all the details of customary law in such a case as a quarrel between over-lord and peer? would a feudal audience have been satisfied with a poem which did not wind the quarrel up in accordance with usage? and would a late poet, in a society no longer feudal, know how to wind it up? would he find any demand on the part of his audience for a long series of statements, which to a modern seem to interrupt the story? to ourselves it appears that a feudal audience desired the customary details; to such an audience they were most interesting. this is a taste which, as has been said, we find in all early poetry and in the sagas; hence the long "runs" of the celtic sagas, minutely repeated descriptions of customary things. the icelandic saga-men never weary, though modern readers do, of legal details. for these reasons we reckon the passages in book xix. about the reconciliation as original, and think they can be nothing else. it is quite natural that, in a feudal society of men who were sticklers for custom, the hearers should insist on having all things done duly and in order--the giving of the gifts and the feast of reconciliation--though the passionate achilles himself desires to fight at once. odysseus insists that what we may call the regular routine shall be gone through. it is tedious to the modern reader, but it is surely much more probable that a feudal poet thus gratified his peculiar audience (he looked for no other) than that a late poet, with a different kind of audience, thrust the reconciliation in as an "after-thought." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 317.] the right thing must be done, odysseus assures achilles, "for i was born first, and know more things." it is not the right thing to fight at once, unfed, and before the solemn sacrifice by the over-lord, the prayer, the oath of agamemnon, and the reception of the gifts by achilles; only after these formalities, and after the army has fed, can the host go forth. "i know more than you do; you are a younger man," says odysseus, speaking in accordance with feudal character, at the risk of wearying later unforeseen generations. this is not criticism inspired by mere "literary feeling," for "literary feeling" is on the side of achilles, and wishes the story to hurry to his revenge. but ours is [blank space] criticism; we must think of the poet in relation to his audience and of their demands, which we can estimate by similar demands, vouched for by the supply, in the early national poetry of other peoples and in the icelandic sagas. we hear no more of agamemnon till, in book xxiii, 35-38, after the slaying of hector, achilles "was brought to noble agamemnon" (for that, as odysseus said, was the regular procedure) "by the achaean chiefs, hardly persuading him thereto, for his heart was wroth for his comrade." here they feast, achilles still full of grief and resentment. he merely goes through the set forms, much against his will. it does appear to us that the later the poet the less he would have known or cared about the forms. an early society is always much interested in forms and in funerals and funeral games, so the poet indulges their taste with the last rites of patroclus. the last view of agamemnon is given when, at the end of the games, achilles courteously presents him with the flowered _lebes_, the prize for hurling the spear, without asking him to compete, since his superior skill is notorious. this act of courtesy is the real reconciliation; previously achilles had but gone reluctantly through the set forms in such cases provided. even when agamemnon offered the gifts of atonement, achilles said, "give them, as is customary, or keep them, as you please" (xix. 146, 148). achilles, young and passionate, cares nothing for the feudal procedure. this rapid survey seems to justify the conclusion that the poet presents an uniform and historically correct picture of the over-lord and of his relations with his peers, a picture which no late editor could have pieced together out of the widely varying _repertoires_ of late strolling reciters. such reciters would gladly have forgotten, and such an editor would gladly have "cut" the "business" of the reconciliation. they would also, in a democratic spirit, have degraded the over-lord into the tyrant, but throughout, however low agamemnon may fall, the poet is guided by the knowledge that his right to rule is _jure divino_, that he has qualities, that his responsibilities are crushing, "i, whom among all men zeus hath planted for ever among labours, while my breath abides within me, and my limbs move," says the over-lord (x. sg, go.[sic]). in short, the poet's conception of the over-lord is throughout harmonious, is a contemporary conception entertained by a singer who lives among peers that own, and are jealous of, and obey an over-lord. the character and situation of agamemnon are a poetic work of one age, one moment of culture. chapter vi archaeology of the "iliad". burial and cremation in archaeological discoveries we find the most convincing proofs that the _iliad_, on the whole, is the production of a single age, not the patchwork of several changeful centuries. this may seem an audacious statement, as archaeology has been interpreted of late in such a manner as to demand precisely the opposite verdict. but if we can show, as we think we can, that many recent interpretations of the archaeological evidence are not valid, because they are not consistent, our contention, though unexpected, will be possible. it is that the combined testimony of archaeology and of the epic proves the _iliad_ to represent, as regards customs, weapons, and armour, a definite moment of evolution; a period between the age recorded in the art of the mycenaean shaft graves and the age of early iron swords and the "dipylon" period. before the discoveries of the material remains of the "mycenzean" times, the evidence of archaeology was seldom appropriately invoked in discussions of the homeric question. but in the thirty years since schliemann explored the buried relics of the mycenzean acropolis, his "grave of agamemnon," a series of excavations has laid bare the interments, the works of art, and the weapons and ornaments of years long prior to the revolution commonly associated with the "dorian invasion" of about 1100-1000 b.c. the objects of all sorts which have been found in many sites of greece and the isles, especially of cyprus and crete, in some respects tally closely with homeric descriptions, in others vary from them widely. nothing can be less surprising, if the heroes whose legendary feats inspired the poet lived centuries before his time, as charlemagne and his paladins lived some three centuries before the composition of the earliest extant _chansons de geste_ on their adventures. there was, in such a case, time for much change in the details of life, art, weapons and implements. taking the relics in the graves of the mycenaean acropolis as a starting-point, some things would endure into the age of the poet, some would be modified, some would disappear. we cannot tell how long previous to his own date the poet supposes the achaean heroes to have existed. he frequently ascribes to them feats of strength which "no man of such as now are" could perform. this gives no definite period for the interval; he might be speaking of the great grandfathers of his own generation. but when he regards the heroes as closely connected by descent of one or two generations with the gods, and as in frequent and familiar intercourse with gods and goddesses, we must suppose that he did not think their period recent. the singers of the _chansons de geste_ knew that angels' visits were few and far between at the period, say, of the norman conquest; but they allowed angels to appear in epics dealing with the earlier time, almost as freely as gods intervene in homer. in short, the homeric poet undeniably treats the age of his heroes as having already, in the phrase of thucydides, "won its way to the mythical," and therefore as indefinitely remote. it is impossible here to discuss in detail the complex problems of mycenaean chronology. if we place the mycenaean "bloom-time" from "the seventeenth or sixteenth to the twelfth century b.c.," [footnote: tsountas and manatt, p. 322.] it is plain that there is space to spare, between the poet's age and that of his heroes, for the rise of changes in war, weapons, and costume. indeed, there are traces enough of change even in the objects and art discovered in the bloom-time, as represented by the mycenaean acropolis itself and by other "mycenaean" sites. the art of the fragment of a silver vase in a grave, on which a siege is represented, is not the art, the costumes are not the costumes, of the inlaid bronze dagger-blade. the men shown on the vase and the lion-hunters on the dagger both have their hair close cropped, but on the vase they are naked, on the dagger they wear short drawers. on the vaphio cups, found in a _tholos_ chamber-tomb near amyclae, the men are "long-haired achaeans," with heavy, pendent locks, like the man on a pyxis from knossos, published by mr. evans; they are of another period than the close-cropped men of the vase and dagger. [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, vol. xvi. p. 102.] two of the men on the silver vase are covered either with shields of a shape and size elsewhere unknown in mycenaean art, or with cloaks of an unexampled form. the masonry of the city wall, shown on the vase in the mycenaean grave, is not the ordinary masonry of mycenae itself. on the vase the wall is "isodomic," built of cut stones in regular layers. most of the mycenaean walls, on the other hand, are of "cyclopean" style, in large irregular blocks. art, good and very bad, exists in many various stages in mycenaean relics. the drawing of a god, with a typical mycenaean shield in the form of a figure 8, on a painted sarcophagus from milato in crete, is more crude and savage than many productions of the australian aboriginals, [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies, vol. xvi. _p._ 174, fig. 50._ grosse. _les debuts de l'art,_ pp. 124-176.] the thing is on the level of red indian work. meanwhile at vaphio, enkomi, knossos, and elsewhere the art is often excellent. in one essential point the poet describes a custom without parallel among the discovered relics of the mycenaean age--namely, the disposal of the bodies of the dead. they are neither buried with their arms, in stately _tholos_ tombs nor in shaft graves, as at mycenae: whether they be princes or simple oarsmen, they are cremated. a pyre of wood is built; on this the warrior's body is laid, the pyre is lighted, the body is reduced to ashes, the ashes are placed in a vessel or box of gold, wrapped round with precious cloths (no arms are buried, as a general rule), and a mound, howe, barrow, or tumulus is raised over all. usually a _stele_ or pillar crowns the edifice. this method is almost uniform, and, as far as cremation and the cairn go, is universal in the _iliad_ and _odyssey_ whenever a burial is described. now this mode of interment must be the mode of a single age in greek civilisation. it is confessedly not the method of the mycenaeans of the shaft grave, or of the latter _tholos_ or stone beehive-shaped grave; again, the mycenaeans did not burn the dead; they buried. once more, the homeric method is not that of the dipylon period (say 900-750 b.c.) represented by the tombs outside the dipylon gate of athens. the people of that age now buried, now burned, their dead, and did not build cairns over them. thus the homeric custom comes between the shaft graves and the latter _tholos_ graves, on the one hand, and the dipylon custom of burning or burying, with sunk or rock-hewn graves, on the other. the homeric poets describe the method of their own period. they assuredly do not adhere to an older epic tradition of shaft graves or _tholos_ graves, though these must have been described in lays of the period when such methods of disposal of the dead were in vogue. the altar above the shaft-graves in mycenae proves the cult of ancestors in mycenae; of this cult in the _iliad_ there is no trace, or only a dim trace of survival in the slaughter of animals at the funeral. the homeric way of thinking about the state of the dead, weak, shadowy things beyond the river oceanus, did not permit them to be worshipped as potent beings. only in a passage, possibly interpolated, of the _odyssey_, do we hear that castor and polydeuces, brothers of helen, and sons of tyndareus, through the favour of zeus have immortality, and receive divine honours. [footnote: odyssey, xi. 298-304.] these facts are so familiar that we are apt to overlook the strangeness of them in the history of religious evolution. the cult of ancestral spirits begins in the lowest barbarism, just above the level of the australian tribes, who, among the dieri, show some traces of the practice, at least, of ghost feeding. [footnote: howitt, _native tribes of south-eastern australia,_ p. 448. there are also traces of propitiation in western australia (ms. of mrs. bates).] sometimes, as in many african tribes, ancestor worship is almost the whole of practical cult. usually it accompanies polytheism, existing beside it on a lower plane. it was prevalent in the mycenae of the shaft graves; in attica it was uninterrupted; it is conspicuous in greece from the ninth century onwards. but it is unknown to or ignored by the homeric poets, though it can hardly have died out of folk custom. consequently, the poems are of one age, an age of cremation and of burial in barrows, with no ghost worship. apparently some revolution as regards burial occurred between the age of the graves of the mycenaean acropolis and the age of homer. that age, coming with its form of burning and its absence of the cult of the dead, between two epochs of inhumation, ancestor worship, and absence of cairns, is as certainly and definitely an age apart, a peculiar period, as any epoch can be. cremation, with cairn burial of the ashes, is, then, the only form of burial mentioned by homer, and, as far as the poet tells us, the period was not one in which iron was used for swords and spears. at assarlik (asia minor) and in thera early graves, prove the use of cremation, but also, unlike homer, of iron weapons. [footnote: paton, journal _of hellenic studies,_ viii. 64_ff_. for other references, cf. poulsen, _die dipylongräben_, p. 2, notes. leipzig 1905.] in these graves the ashes are inurned. there are examples of the same usage in salamis, without iron. in crete, in graves of the period of geometrical ornament ("dipylon"), burning is more common than inhumation. cremation is attested in a _tholos_ or beehive-shaped grave in argos, where the vases were late mycenaean. below this stratum was an older shaft grave, as is usual in _tholos_ interments; it had been plundered? [footnote: poulsen, p.2.] the cause of the marked change from mycenaean inhumation to homeric cremation is matter of conjecture. it has been suggested that burning was introduced during the migrations after the dorian invasion. men could carry the ashes of their friends to the place where they finally settled. [footnote: helbig, _homerische epos,_ p.83] the question may, perhaps, be elucidated by excavation, especially in asia minor, on the sites of the earliest greek colonies. at colophon are many cairns unexplored by science. mr. ridgeway, as is well known, attributes the introduction of cremation to a conquering northern people, the achaeans, his "celts." it is certain that cremation and urn burial of the ashes prevailed in britain during the age of bronze, and co-existed with inhumation in the great cemetery of hallstatt, surviving into the age of iron. [footnote: cf. _guide to antiquities of early iron age,_ british museum, 1905, by mr. reginald a. smith, under direction of mr. charles h. read, for a brief account of hallstatt culture.] others suppose a change in achaean ideas about the soul; it was no longer believed to haunt the grave and grave goods and be capable of haunting the living, but to be wholly set free by burning, and to depart for ever to the house of hades, powerless and incapable of hauntings. it is never easy to decide as to whether a given mode of burial is the result of a definite opinion about the condition of the dead, or whether the explanation offered by those who practise the method is an afterthought. in tasmania among the lowest savages, now extinct, were found monuments over cremated human remains, accompanied with "characters crudely marked, similar to those which the aborigines tattooed on their forearms." in one such grave was a spear, "for the dead man to fight with when he is asleep," as a native explained. some tasmanian tribes burned the dead and carried the ashes about in amulets; others buried in hollow trees; others simply inhumed. some placed the dead in a hollow tree, and cremated the body after lapse of time. some tied the dead up tightly (a common practice with inhumation), and then burned him. some buried the dead in an erect 'posture. the common explanation of burning was that it prevented the dead from returning, thus it has always been usual to burn the bodies of vampires. did a race so backward hit on an idea unknown to the mycenaean greeks? [footnote: ling roth., _the tasmanians_, pp. 128-134. reports of early discoverers.] if the usual explanation be correct--burning prevents the return of the dead--how did the homeric greeks come to substitute burning for the worship and feeding of the dead, which had certainly prevailed? how did the ancient method return, overlapping and blent with the method of cremation, as in the early dipylon interments? we can only say that the homeric custom is definite and isolated, and that but slight variations occur in the methods of homeric burial. (1)in _iliad_, vi, 4 i 6 _ff_, andromache _says_ that achilles slew her father, "yet he despoiled him not, for his soul had shame of that; but he burnt him in his inlaid armour, and raised a barrow over him." we are not told that the armour was interred with the ashes of eetion. this is a peculiar case. we always hear in the that the dead are burned, and the ashes of princes are placed in a vessel of gold within an artificial hillock; but we do not hear, except in this passage, that they are burned in their armour, or that it is burned, or that it is buried with the ashes of the dead. the invariable practice is for the victor, if he can, to despoil the body of the fallen foe; but achilles for some reason spared that indignity in the case of eetion. [footnote: german examples of burning the amis of the cremated dead and then burying them are given by mr. ridgeway, _early age of greece,_ vol. i. pp. 498, 499.] (2) _iliad,_ vii. 85. hector, in his challenge to a single combat, makes the conditions that the victor shall keep the arms and armour of the vanquished, but shall restore his body to his friends. the trojans will burn him, if he falls; if the achaean falls, the others will do something expressed by the word [greek: tarchuchosi] probably a word surviving from an age of embalment. [footnote: helbig, _homerische epos,_ pp. 55, 56.] it has come to mean, generally, to do the funeral rites. the hero is to have a barrow or artificial howe or hillock built over him, "beside wide hellespont," a memorial of him, and of hector's valour. on the river helmsdale, near kildonan, on the left bank, there is such a hillock which has never, it is believed, been excavated. it preserves the memory of its occupant, an early celtic saint; whether he was cremated or not it is impossible to say. but his memory is not lost, and the howe, cairn, or hillock, in homer is desired by the heroes as a memorial. on the terms proposed by hector the arms of the dead could not be either burned or buried with him. (3) iliad, ix. 546. phoenix says that the calydonian boar "brought many to the mournful pyre." all were cremated. (4) _iliad_, xxii 50-55. andromache in her dirge (the _regret_ of the french mediaeval epics) says that hector lies unburied by the ships and naked, but she will burn raiment of his, "delicate and fair, the work of women ... to thee no profit, since thou wilt never lie therein, yet this shall be honour to thee from the men and women of troy." her meaning is not very clear, but she seems to imply that if hector's body were in troy it would be clad in garments before cremation. helbig appears to think that to clothe the dead in _garments_ was an ionian, not an ancient epic custom. but in homer the dead always wear at least one garment, the [greek: pharos], a large mantle, either white or purple, such as agamemnon wears in peace (iliad, ii 43), except when, like eetion and elpenor in the odyssey, they are burned in their armour. in _iliad,_ xxiii. 69 _ff_., the shadow of the dead unburned patroclus appears to achilles in his sleep asking for "his dues of fire." the whole passage, with the account of the funeral of patroclus, must be read carefully, and compared with the funeral rites of hector at the end of book xxiv. helbig, in an essay of great erudition, though perhaps rather fantastic in its generalisations, has contrasted the burials of the two heroes. patroclus is buried, he says, in a true portion of the old aeolic epic (sir richard jebb thought the whole passage "ionic"), though even into this the late ionian _bearbeiter_ (a spectral figure), has introduced his ionian notions. but the twenty-fourth book itself is late and ionian, helbig says, not genuine early aeolian epic poetry. [footnote: helbig, _zu den homerischen bestattungsgebraüchen_. aus den sitzungsberichten der philos. philol. und histor. classe der kgl. bayer. academie der wissenschaften. 1900. heft. ii. pp. 199-299.] the burial of patroclus, then, save for ionian late interpolations, easily detected by helbig, is, he assures us, genuine "kernel," [footnote: 2 op. _laud._, p. 208.] while hector's burial "is partly ionian, and describes the destiny of the dead heroes otherwise than as in the old aeolic epos." here helbig uses that one of his two alternate theories according to which the late ionian poets do not cling to old epic tradition, but bring in details of the life of their own date. by helbig's other alternate theory, the late poets cling to the model set in old epic tradition in their pictures of details of life. disintegrationists differ: far from thinking that the late ionian poet who buried hector varied from the aeolic minstrel who buried patroclus (in book xxiii.), mr. leaf says that hector's burial is "almost an abstract" of that of patroclus. [footnote: leaf, iliad, xxii note to 791.] he adds that helbig's attempts "to distinguish the older aeolic from the newer and more sceptical 'ionic' faith seem to me visionary." [footnote: iliad, vol. ii. p. 619. note 2] visionary, indeed, they do seem, but they are examples of the efforts made to prove that the iliad bears marks of composition continued through several centuries. we must remember that, according to helbig, the ionians, colonists in a new country, "had no use for ghosts." a fresh colony does not produce ghosts. "there is hardly an english or scottish castle without its spook (_spuck_). on the other hand, you look in vain for such a thing in the united states"--spiritualism apart. [footnote: op. _laud._, p. 204.] this is a hasty generalisation! helbig will, if he looks, find ghosts enough in the literature of north america while still colonial, and in australia, a still more newly settled country, sixty years ago fisher's ghost gave evidence of fisher's murder, evidence which, as in another australian case, served the ends of justice. [footnote: see, in _the_ valet's tragedy (a. l.): "fisher's ghost."] more recent australian ghosts are familiar to psychical research. this colonial theory is one of helbig's too venturous generalisations. he studies the ghost, or rather dream-apparition, of patroclus after examining the funeral of hector; but we shall begin with patroclus. achilles (xxiii. 4-16) first hails his friend "even in the house of hades" (so he believes that spirits are in hades), and says that he has brought hector "raw for dogs to devour," and twelve trojans of good family "to slaughter before thy pyre." that night, when achilles is asleep (xxiii. 65) the spirit ([greek: psyche]) of patroclus appears to him, says that he is forgotten, and begs to be burned at once, that he may pass the gates of hades, for the other spirits drive him off and will not let him associate with them "beyond the river," and he wanders vaguely along the wide-gated dwelling of hades. "give me thy hand, for never more again shall i come back from hades, when ye have given me my due of fire." patroclus, being newly discarnate, does not yet know that a spirit cannot take a living man's hand, though, in fact, tactile hallucinations are not uncommon in the presence of phantasms of the dead. "lay not my bones apart from thine ... let one coffer" ([greek: soros]) "hide our bones." [greek: soros], like _larnax_, is a coffin (_sarg_), or what the americans call a "casket," in the opinion of helbig: [footnote: op. _laud_., p.217.] it is an oblong receptacle of the bones and dust. hector was buried in a _larnax_; so will achilles and patroclus be when achilles falls, but the dust of patroclus is kept, meanwhile, in a golden covered cup (phialae) in the quarters of achilles; it is not laid in howe after his cremation (xxiii. 243). achilles tries to embrace patroclus, but fails, like odysseus with the shade of his mother in hades, in the _odyssey_. he exclaims that "there remaineth then even in the house of hades a spirit and phantom of the dead, albeit the life" (or the wits) "be not anywise therein, for all night hath the spirit of hapless patroclus stood over me...." in this speech helbig detects the hand of the late ionian poet. what goes before is part of the genuine old epic, the kernel, done at a time when men believed that spooks could take part in the affairs of the upper world. achilles therefore (in his dream), thought that he could embrace his friend. it was the sceptical ionian, in a fresh and spookless colony, who knew that he could not; he thinks the ghost a mere dream, and introduces his scepticism in xxiii. 99-107. he brought in "the ruling ideas of his own period." the ghost, says the ionian _bearbeiter_, is intangible, though in the genuine old epic the ghost himself thought otherwise--he being new to the situation and without experience. this is the first sample of the critical ionian spirit, later so remarkable in philosophy and natural science, says helbig. [footnote: op. laud., pp. 233,234.] we need not discuss this acute critical theory. the natural interpretation of the words of achilles is obvious; as mr. leaf remarks, the words are "the cry of sudden personal conviction in a matter which has hitherto been lazily accepted as an orthodox dogma." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 620.] already, as we have seen, achilles has made promises to patroclus in the house of hades, now he exclaims "there really is something in the doctrine of a feeble future life." it is vain to try to discriminate between an old epic belief in able-bodied ghosts and an ionian belief in mere futile _shades_, in the homeric poems. everywhere the dead are too feeble to be worth worshipping after they are burned; but, as mr. leaf says with obvious truth, and with modern instances, "men are never so inconsistent as in their beliefs about the other world." we ourselves hold various beliefs simultaneously. the natives of australia and of tasmania practise, or did practise, every conceivable way of disposing of the dead--burying, burning, exposure in trees, carrying about the bodies or parts of them, eating the bodies, and so forth. if each such practice corresponded, as archaeologists believe, to a different opinion about the soul, then all beliefs were held together at once, and this, in fact, is the case. there is not now one and now another hard and fast orthodoxy of belief about the dead, though now we find ancestor worship prominent and now in the shade. after gifts of hair and the setting up of jars full of oil and honey, achilles has the body laid on the top of the pyre in the centre. bodies of sheep and oxen, two dogs and four horses, are strewed around: why, we know not, for the dead is not supposed to need food: the rite may be a survival, for there were sacrifices at the burials of the mycenaean shaft graves. achilles slays also the twelve trojans, "because of mine anger at thy slaying," he says (xxiii. 23). this was his reason, as far as he consciously had any reason, not that his friend might have twelve thralls in hades. after the pyre is alit achilles drenches it all night with wine, and, when the flame dies down, the dead hero's bones are collected and placed in the covered cup of gold. the circle of the barrow is then marked out, stones are set up round it (we see them round highland tumuli), and earth is heaped up; no more is done; the tomb is empty; the covered cup holding the ashes is in the hut of achilles. we must note another trait. after the body of patroclus was recovered, it was washed, anointed, laid on a bier, and covered from head to foot [greek: heano liti], translated by helbig, "with a linen sheet" (cf. xxiii. 254). the golden cup with the ashes is next wrapped [greek: heano liti]; here mr. myers renders the words "with a linen veil." scottish cremation burials of the bronze age retain traces of linen wrappings of the urn. [footnote: _proceedings of the scottish society of antiquaries_, 1905, p. 552. for other cases, _cf._ leaf, _iliad_, xxiv. 796. note.] over all a white [greek: pharos] (mantle) was spread. in _iliad_, xxiv. 231, twelve [greek: pharea] with chitons, single cloaks, and other articles of dress, are taken to achilles by priam as part of the ransom of hector's body. such is the death-garb of patroclus; but helbig, looking for ionian innovations in book xxiv., finds that the death-garb of hector is not the same as that of patroclus in book xxiii. one difference is that when the squires of achilles took the ransom of hector from the waggon of priam, they left in it two [greek: pharea] and a well-spun chiton. the women washed and anointed hector's body; they clad him in the chiton, and threw one [greek: pharos] over it; we are not told what they did with the other. perhaps, as mr. leaf says, it was used as a cover for the bier, perhaps it was not, but was laid under the body (helbig). all we know is that hector's body was restored to priam in a chiton and a [greek: pharos], which do not seem to have been removed before he was burned; while patroclus had no chiton in death, but a [greek: pharos] and, apparently, a linen sheet. to the ordinary reader this does not seem, in the circumstances, a strong mark of different ages and different burial customs. priam did not bring any linen sheet--or whatever [greek: heanos lis] may be--in the waggon as part of hector's ransom; and it neither became achilles to give nor priam to receive any of achilles's stuff as death-garb for hector. the squires, therefore, gave back to priam, to clothe his dead son, part of what he had brought; nothing can be more natural, and there, we may say, is an end on't. they did what they could in the circumstances. but helbig has observed that, in a cean inscription of the fifth century b.c., there is a sumptuary law, forbidding a corpse to wear more than three white garments, a sheet under him, a chiton, and a mantle cast over him. [footnote: op. _laud_., p. 209.] he supposes that hector wore the chiton, and had one [greek: pharos] over him and the other under him, though homer does not say that. the laws of solon also confined the dead man to three articles of dress. [footnote: plutarch, solon, 21.] in doing so solon sanctioned an old custom, and that ionian custom, described by the author of book xxiv., bewrays him, says helbig, for a late ionian _bearbeiter_, deserting true epic usages and inserting those of his own day. but in some attic dipylon vases, in the pictures of funerals, we see no garments or sheets over the corpses. penelope also wove a [greek: charos] against the burial of old laertes, but surely she ought to have woven for him; on helbig's showing hector had _two_, patroclus had only one; patroclus is in the old epic, hector and laertes are in the ionian epics; therefore, laertes should have had two [greek: charea] but we only hear of one. penelope had to finish the [greek: charos] and show it; [footnote: odyssey, xxiv. 147.] now if she wanted to delay her marriage, she should have begun the second [greek: charos] just as necessary as the first, if hector, with a pair of [greek: charea] represents ionian usage. but penelope never thought of what, had she read helbig, she would have seen to be so obvious. she thought of no funeral garments for the old man but one shroud [greek: speiron] (odyssey, ii. 102; xix. 147); yet, being, by the theory, a character of late ionian, not of genuine old aeolic epic, she should have known better. it is manifest that if even the acuteness and vast erudition of helbig can only find such invisible differences as these between the manners of the genuine old epic and the late ionian innovations, there is really no difference, beyond such trifles as diversify custom in any age. hector, when burned and when his ashes have been placed in the casket, is laid in a [greek: kapetos], a ditch or trench (_iliad_, xv. 356; xviii. 564); but here (xxiv. 797) [greek: kapetos] is a chamber covered with great stones, within the howe, the casket being swathed with purple robes, and this was the end. the ghost of hector would not revisit the sun, as ghosts do freely in the cyclic poems, a proof that the cyclics are later than the homeric poems. [footnote: helbig, op. _laud_., pp. 240, 241.] if the burning of the weapons of eetion and elpenor are traces of another than the _old_ aeolic epic faith, [footnote: ibid., p. 253.] they are also traces of another than the late _ionic_ epic faith, for no weapons are burned with hector. in the _odyssey_ the weapons of achilles are not burned; in the _iliad_ the armour of patroclus is not burned. no victims of any kind are burned with hector: possibly the poet was not anxious to repeat what he had just described (his last book is already a very long book); possibly the trojans did not slay victims at the burning. the howes or barrows built over the homeric dead were hillocks high enough to be good points of outlook for scouts, as in the case of the barrow of aesyetes (_iliad_, ii. 793) and "the steep mound," the howe of lithe myrine (ii. 814). we do not know that women were usually buried in howe, but myrine was a warrior maiden of the amazons. we know, then, minutely what the homeric mode of burial was, with such variations as have been noted. we have burning and howe even in the case of an obscure oarsman like elpenor. it is not probable, however, that every peaceful mechanic had a howe all to himself; he may have had a small family cairn; he may not have had an expensive cremation. the interesting fact is that no barrow burial precisely of the homeric kind has ever been discovered in greek sites. the old mycenaeans buried either in shaft graves or in a stately _tholos_; and in rock chambers, later, in the town cemetery: they did not burn the bodies. the people of the dipylon period sometimes cremated, sometimes inhumed, but they built no barrow over the dead. [footnote: _annal. de l'inst.,_ 1872, pp. 135, 147, 167. plausen, _ut supra_.] the dipylon was a period of early iron swords, made on the lines of not the best type of bronze sword. now, in mr. leaf's opinion, our homeric accounts of burial "are all late; the oldest parts of the poems tell us nothing." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 619. note 2. while mr. leaf says that "the oldest parts of the poems tell us nothing" of burial, he accepts xxii. 342, 343 as of the oldest part. these lines describe cremation, and mr. leaf does not think them borrowed from the "later" vii. 79, 80, but that vii. 79, 80 are "perhaps borrowed" from xxii. 342, 343. it follows that "the oldest parts of the poems" do tell us of cremation.] we shall show, however, that mr. leaf's "kernel" alludes to cremation. what is "late"? in this case it is not the dipylon period, say 900-750 b.c. it is not any later period; one or two late barrow burials do not answer to the homeric descriptions. the "late" parts of the poems, therefore, dealing with burials, in books vi., vii., xix., xxiii., xxiv., and the odyssey, are of an age not in "the mycenaean prime," not in the dipylon period, not in any later period, say the seventh or sixth centuries b.c., and, necessarily, not of any subsequent period. yet nobody dreams of saying that the poets describe a purely fanciful form of interment. they speak of what they know in daily life. if it be argued that the late poets preserve, by sheer force of epic tradition, a form of burial unknown in their own age, we ask, "why did epic tradition not preserve the burial methods of the mycenaean prime, the shaft grave, or the _tholos_, without cremation?" mr. leaf's own conclusion is that the people of mycenae were "spirit worshippers, practising inhumation, and partial mummification;" the second fact is dubious. "in the post-mycenaean 'dipylon' period, we find cremation and sepulture practised side by side. in the interval, therefore, two beliefs have come into conflict. [footnote: all conceivable beliefs, we have said, about the dead are apt to coexist. for every conceivable and some rather inconceivable contemporary australian modes of dealing with the dead, see howitt, _native tribes of south-east australia_; spencer and gillen, _northern tribes of central australia_.] it seems that the homeric poems mark this intermediate point...." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 622.] in that case the homeric poems are of one age, or, at least, all of them save "the original kernel" are of one age, namely, a period subsequent to the mycenaean prime, but considerably prior to the dipylon period, which exhibits a mixture of custom; cremation and inhumation coexisting, without barrows or howes. we welcome this conclusion, and note that (whatever may be the case with the oldest parts of the poems which say nothing about funerals) the latest expansions must be of about 1100-1000 b.c. (?). the poem is so early that it is prior to hero worship and ancestor worship; or it might be more judicious to say that the poem is of an age that did not, officially, practise ancestor worship, whatever may have occurred in folk-custom. the homeric age is one which had outgrown ancestor and hero worship, and had not, like the age of the cyclics, relapsed into it. _enfin_, unless we agree with helbig as to essential variations of custom, the poems are the work of one age, and that a brief age, and an age of peculiar customs, cremation and barrow burial; and of a religion that stood, without spirit worship, between the mycenzean period and the ninth century. that seems as certain as anything in prehistoric times can be, unless we are to say, that after the age of shaft graves and spirit worship came an age of cremation and of no spirit worship; and that late poets consciously and conscientiously preserved the tradition of _this_ period into their own ages of hero worship and inhumation, though they did not preserve the tradition of the shaft-grave period. we cannot accept this theory of adherence to stereotyped poetical descriptions, nor can any one consistently adopt it in this case. the reason is obvious. mr. leaf, with many other critics, distinguishes several successive periods of "expansion." in the first stratum we have the remains of "the original kernel." among these remains is the slaying of hector (xxii. 1-404), "with but slight additions." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. xi.] in the slaying of hector that hero indicates cremation as the mode of burial. "give them my body back again, that the trojans and trojans' wives grant me my due of fire after my death." perhaps this allusion to cremation, in the "original kernel" in the slaying of hector, may be dismissed as a late borrowing from book vii. 79, 80, where hector makes conditions that the fallen hero shall be restored to his friends when he challenges the achaeans to a duel. but whoever knows the curious economy by way of repetition that marks early national epics has a right to regard the allusion to cremation (xxii, 342,343) as an example of this practice. compare _la chancun de williame_, lines 1041-1058 with lines 1140-1134. in both the dinner of a knight who has been long deprived of food is described in passages containing many identical lines. the poet, having found his formula, uses it whenever occasion serves. there are several other examples in the same epic. [footnote: _romania_, xxxiv. pp. 245, 246.] repetitions in homer need not indicate late additions; the artifice is part of the epic as it is of the ballad manner. if we are right, cremation is the mode of burial even in "the original kernel." hector, moreover, in the kernel (xxii. 256-259) makes, before his final fight with achilles, the same proposal as he makes in his challenge to a duel (vii. 85 et _seqq_.). the victor shall give back the body of the vanquished to his friends, but how the friends are to bury it hector does not say--in this place. when dying, he does say (xxii. 342, 343). in the kernel and all periods of expansion, funeral rites are described, and in all the method is cremation, with a howe or a barrow. thus the method of cremation had come in as early as the "kernel," the slaying of hector, and as early as the first expansions, and it lasted till the period of the latest expansions, such as books xxiii., xxiv. but what is the approximate date of the various expansions of the original poem? on that point mr. leaf gives his opinion. the making of the arms of achilles (books xviii., xix. 1-39) is, with the funeral of patroclus (xxiii. 1-256), in the second set of expansions, and is thus two removes later than the original "kernel." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. xii.] now this is the period--the making of the shield for achilles is, at least, in touch with the period--of "the eminently free and naturalistic treatment which we find in the best mycenaean work, in the dagger blades, in the siege fragment, and notably in the vaphio cups," (which show long-haired men, not men close-cropped, as in the daggers and siege fragment). [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p, 606.] the poet of the age of the second expansions, then,' is at least in touch with the work of the shaft grave and ages. he need not be contemporary with that epoch, but "may well have had in his mind the work of artists older than himself." it is vaguely possible that he may have seen an ancient shield of the mycenaean prime, and may be inspired by that. [footnote: _ibid_., vol. ii. pp. 606, 607.] moreover, and still more remarkable, the ordinary homeric form of cremation and howe-burial is even older than the period which, if not contemporary with, is clearly reminiscent of, the art of the shaft graves. for, in the period of the first expansions (vii. 1-3 i 2), the form of burial is cremation, with a barrow or tumulus. [footnote: _ibid_., vol. ii. p. xi. and pp. 606, 607.] thus mr. leaf's opinion might lead us to the conclusion that the usual homeric form of burial occurs in a period _prior_ to an age in which the poet is apparently reminiscent of the work of two early epochs--the epoch of shaft graves and that of _tholos_ graves. if this be so, cremation and urn burial in cairns may be nearly as old as the mycenaean shaft graves, or as old as the _tholos_ graves, and they endure into the age of the latest expansions. we must not press, however, opinions founded on the apparent technical resemblance of the free style and coloured metal work on the shield of achilles, to the coloured metal work and free design on the daggers of the mycenaean shaft graves. it is enough for us to note that the passages concerning burial, from the "kernel" itself, and also from the earliest to the latest expansions, are all perfectly harmonious, and of a single age--unless we are convinced by helbig's objections. that age must have been brief, indeed, for, before it arrives, the period of _tholos_ graves, as at vaphio, must expire, on one hand, while the blending of cremation with inhumation, in the dipylon age, must have been evolved after the cremation age passed, on the other. that brief intervening age, however, was the age of the _iliad_ and odyssey. this conclusion can only be avoided by alleging that late poets, however recent and revolutionary, carefully copied the oldest epic model of burial, while they innovated in almost every other point, so we are told. we can go no further till we find an unrifled cairn burial answering to homeric descriptions. we have, indeed, in thessaly, "a large tumulus which contained a silver urn with burned remains." but the accompanying pottery dated it in the second century b.c. [footnote: ridgeway, _early age of greece_, vol. i. p. 491; _journal of hellenic studies, vol. xx_. pp. 20-25.] it is possible enough that all tumuli of the homeric period have been robbed by grave plunderers in the course of the ages, as the vikings are said to have robbed the cairns of sutherlandshire, in which they were not likely to find a rich reward for their labours. a conspicuous howe invites robbery--the heroes of the saga, like grettir, occasionally rob a howe--and the fact is unlucky for the homeric archaeologist. we have now tried to show that, as regards (1) to the absence from homer of new religious and ritual ideas, or of very old ideas revived in ionia, (2) as concerns the clear conception of a loose form of feudalism, with an over-lord, and (3) in the matter of burial, the _iliad_ and odyssey are self-consistent, and bear the impress of a single and peculiar moment of culture. the fact, if accepted, is incompatible with the theory that the poets both introduced the peculiar conditions of their own later ages and also, on other occasions, consciously and consistently "archaised." not only is such archaising inconsistent with the art of an uncritical age, but a careful archaiser, with all the resources of alexandrian criticism at his command, could not archaise successfully. we refer to quintus smyrnaeus, author of the _post homerica_, in fourteen books. quintus does his best; but we never observe in him that _naïf_ delight in describing weapons and works of art, and details of law and custom which are so conspicuous in homer and in other early poets. he does give us penthesilea's great sword, with a hilt of ivory and silver; but of what metal was the blade? we are not told, and the reader of quintus will observe that, though he knows [greek: chalkos], bronze, as a synonym for weapons, he scarcely ever, if ever, says that a sword or spear or arrow-head was of bronze--a point on which homer constantly insists. when he names the military metal quintus usually speaks of iron. he has no interest in the constitutional and legal sides of heroic life, so attractive to homer. yet quintus consciously archaises, in a critical age, with homer as his model. any one who believes that in an uncritical age rhapsodists archaised, with such success as the presumed late poets of the _iliad_ must have done, may try his hand in our critical age, at a ballad in the style of the border ballads. if he succeeds in producing nothing that will at once mark his work as modern, he will be more successful than any poet who has made the experiment, and more successful than the most ingenious modern forgers of gems, jewels, and terra-cottas. they seldom deceive experts, and, when they do, other experts detect the deceit. chapter vii homeric armour tested by their ideas, their picture of political society, and their descriptions of burial rites, the presumed authors of the alleged expansions of the _iliad_ all lived in one and the same period of culture. but, according to the prevalent critical theory, we read in the _iliad_ not only large "expansions" of many dates, but also briefer interpolations inserted by the strolling reciters or rhapsodists. "until the final literary redaction had come," says mr. leaf--that is about 540 b.c.--"we cannot feel sure that any details, even of the oldest work, were secure from the touch of the latest poet." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. ix.] here we are far from mr. leaf's own opinion that "the whole scenery of the poems, the details of armour, palaces, dress, decoration ... had become stereotyped, and formed a foundation which the epic poet dared not intentionally sap...." [footnote: _ibid_., vol. i. p. xv.] we now find [footnote: _ibid_., vol. ii. p. ix.] that "the latest poet" saps as much as he pleases down to the middle of the sixth century b.c. moreover, in the middle of the sixth century b.c., the supposed editor employed by hsistratus made "constant additions of transitional passages," and added many speeches by nestor, an ancestor of pisistratus. did these very late interlopers, down to the sixth century, introduce modern details into the picture of life? did they blur the _unus_ color? we hope to prove that, if they did so at all, it was but slightly. that the poems, however, with a mycenaean or sub-mycenaean basis of actual custom and usage, contain numerous contaminations from the usage of centuries as late as the seventh, is the view of mr. leaf, and reichel and his followers. [footnote: homerische waffen. von wolfgang reichel. wien, 1901.] reichel's hypothesis is that the heroes of the original poet had no defensive armour except the great mycenaean shields; that the ponderous shield made the use of chariots imperatively necessary; that, after the mycenaean age, a small buckler and a corslet superseded the unwieldy shield; that chariots were no longer used; that, by the seventh century b.c., a warrior could not be thought of without a breastplate; and that new poets thrust corslets and greaves into songs both new and old. how the new poets could conceive of warriors as always in chariots, whereas in practice they knew no war chariots, and yet could not conceive of them without corslets which the original poet never saw, is reichel's secret. the new poets had in the old lays a plain example to follow. they did follow it as to chariots and shields; as to corslets and greaves they reversed it. such is the reichelian theory. the shield as regards armour, controversy is waged over the shield, corslet, and bronze greaves. in homer the shield is of leather, plated with bronze, and of bronze is the corslet. no shields of bronze plating and no bronze corslets have been found in mycenaean excavations. we have to ask, do the homeric descriptions of shields tally with the representations of shields in works of art, discovered in the graves of mycenae, spata in attica, vaphio in sparta, and elsewhere? if the descriptions in homer vary from these relics, to what extent do they vary? and do the differences arise from the fact that the poet describes consistently what he sees in his own age, or are the variations caused by late rhapsodists in the iron age, who keep the great obsolete shields and bronze weapons, yet introduce the other military gear of their day, say 800-600 b.c.--gear unknown to the early singers? it may be best to inquire, first, what does the poet, or what do the poets, say about shields? and, next, to examine the evidence of representations of shields in mycenaean art; always remembering that the poet does not pretend to live, and beyond all doubt does not live, in the mycenaean prime, and that the testimony of the tombs is liable to be altered by fresh discoveries. in _iliad_, ii. 388, the shield (_aspis_) is spoken of as "covering a man about" ([greek: _amphibrotae_]), while, in the heat of battle, the baldric (_telamon_), or belt of the shield, "shall be wet with sweat." the shield, then, is not an ionian buckler worn on the left arm, but is suspended by a belt, and covers a man, or most of him, just as mycenaean shields are suspended by belts shown in works of art, and cover the body and legs. this (ii. 388) is a general description applying to the shields of all men who fight from chariots. their great shield answers to the great mediaeval shield of the knights of the twelfth century, the "double targe," worn suspended from the neck by a belt. such a shield covers a mounted knight's body from mouth to stirrup in an ivory chessman of the eleventh to twelfth century a.d., [footnote: _catalogue of scottish national antiquities_, p. 375.] so also in the bayeux tapestry, [footnote: gautier, _chanson de roland_. seventh edition, pp. 393, 394.] and on seals. dismounted men have the same shield (p. 132). the shield of menelaus (iii. 348) is "equal in all directions," which we might conceive to mean, mathematically "circular," as the words do mean that. a shield is said to have "circles," and a spear which grazes a shield--a shield which was _[greek: panton eesae]_, "every way equal"--rends both circles, the outer circle of bronze, and the inner circle of leather (_iliad_, xx. 273-281). but the passage is not unjustly believed to be late; and we cannot rely on it as proof that homer knew circular shields among others. the epithet _[greek: eukuklykos]_, "of good circle," is commonly given to the shields, but does not mean that the shield was circular, we are told, but merely that it was "made of circular plates." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 573.] as for the shield of menelaus, and other shields described in the same words, "every way equal," the epithet is not now allowed to mean "circular." mr. leaf, annotating _iliad_, i. 306, says that this sense is "intolerably mathematical and prosaic," and translates _[greek: panton eesae]_ as "well balanced on every side." helbig renders the epithets in the natural sense, as "circular." [footnote: helbig, _homerische epos_, p. 315; cf., on the other hand, p. 317, note i.] to the rendering "circular" it is objected that a circular shield of, say, four feet and a half in diameter, would be intolerably heavy and superfluously wide, while the shields represented in mycenaean art are not circles, but rather resemble a figure of eight, in some cases, or a section of a cylinder, in others, or, again, a door (fig. 5, p. 130). what homer really meant by such epithets as "equal every way," "very circular," "of a good circle," cannot be ascertained, since homeric epithets of the shield, which were previously rendered "circular," "of good circle," and so on, are now translated in quite other senses, in order that homeric descriptions may be made to tally with mycenaean representations of shields, which are never circular as represented in works of art. in this position of affairs we are unable to determine the shape, or shapes, of the shields known to homer. a scholar's rendering of homer's epithets applied to the shield is obliged to vary with the variations of his theory about the shield. thus, in 1883, mr. leaf wrote, "the poet often calls the shield by names which seem to imply that it was round, and yet indicates that it was large enough to cover the whole body of a man.... in descriptions the round shape is always implied." the words which indicated that the shield (or one shield) "really looked like a tower, and really reached from neck to ankles" (in two or three cases), were "received by the poet from the earlier achaean lays." "but to homer the warriors appeared as using the later small round shield. his belief in the heroic strength of the men of old time made it quite natural to speak of them as bearing a shield which at once combined the later circular shape and the old heroic expanse...." [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies, iv. pp._ 283-285.] here the homeric words which naturally mean "circular" or "round" are accepted as meaning "round" or "circular." homer, it is supposed, in practice only knows the round shields of the later age, 700 b.c., so he calls shields "round," but, obedient to tradition, he conceives of them as very large. but, after the appearance of reichel's speculations, the homeric words for "round" and "circular" have been explained as meaning something else, and mr. leaf, in place of maintaining that homer knew no shields but round shields, now writes (1900), "the small circular shield of later times...is equally unknown to homer, with a very few curious exceptions," which reichel discovered--erroneously, as we shall later try to show. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 575.] thus does science fluctuate! now homer knows in practice none but light round bucklers, dating from about 700 b.c.; again, he does not know them at all, though they were habitually used in the period at which the later parts of his epic were composed. we shall have to ask, how did small round bucklers come to be unknown to late poets who saw them constantly? some scholars, then, believe that the old original poet always described mycenaean shields, which are of various shapes, but never circular in mycenaean art. if there are any circular shields in the poems, these, they say, must have been introduced by poets accustomed, in a much later age, to seeing circular bucklers. therefore homeric words, hitherto understood as meaning "circular," must now mean something else--even if the reasoning seems circular. other scholars believe that the poet in real life saw various types of shields in use, and that some of them were survivals of the mycenaean shields, semi-cylindrical, or shaped like figures of 8, or like a door; others were circular; and these scholars presume that homer meant "circular" when he said "circular." neither school will convert the other, and we cannot decide between them. we do not pretend to be certain as to whether the original poet saw shields of various types, including the round shape, in use, though that is possible, or whether he saw only the mycenaean types. as regards size, homer certainly describes, in several cases, shields very much larger than most which we know for certain to have been common after, say, 700 b.c. he speaks of shields reaching from neck to ankles, and "covering the body of a man about." whether he was also familiar with smaller shields of various types is uncertain; he does not explicitly say that any small bucklers were used by the chiefs, nor does he explicitly say that all shields were of the largest type. it is possible that at the time when the epic was composed various types of shield were being tried, while the vast ancient shield was far from obsolete. to return to the _size_ of the shield. in a feigned tale of odysseus (odyssey, xiv. 474-477), men in a wintry ambush place their shields over their shoulders, as they lie on the ground, to be a protection against snow. but any sort of shield, large or small, would protect the shoulders of men in a recumbent position. quite a large shield may seem to be indicated in _iliad_, xiii. 400-405, where idomeneus curls up his whole person behind his shield; he was "hidden" by it. yet, as any one can see by experiment, a man who crouched low would be protected entirely by a highland targe of less than thirty inches in diameter, so nothing about the size of the shield is ascertained in this passage. on a black-figured vase in the british museum (b, 325) the entire body of a crouching warrior is defended by a large boeotian buckler, oval, and with _échancrures_ in the sides. the same remark applies to _z&ad_[sic], xxii. 273-275. hector watches the spear of achilles as it flies; he crouches, and the spear flies over him. robert takes this as an "old mycenaean" dodge--to duck down to the bottom of the shield. [footnote: _studien zur ilias_, p. 21.] the avoidance by ducking can be managed with no shield, or with a common highland targe, which would cover a man in a crouching posture, as when glenbucket's targe was peppered by bullets at clifton (746), and cluny shouted "what the devil is this?" the assailants firing unexpectedly from a ditch. a few moments of experiment, we repeat, prove that a round targe can protect a man in hector's attitude, and that the homeric texts here throw no light on the _size_ of the shield. the shield of hector was of black bull's-hide, and as large and long as any represented in mycenaean art, so that, as he walked, the rim knocked against his neck and ankles. the shape is not mentioned. despite its size, he _walked_ under it from the plain and field of battle into troy (_iliad_, vi. 116-118). this must be remembered, as reichel [footnote: reichel, 38, 39. father browne (_handbook_, p. 230) writes, "in _odyssey_, xiv 475, odysseus says he slept within the shield." he says "under arms" (_odyssey_, xiv. 474, but _cf_. xiv. 479).] maintains that a man could not walk under shield, or only for a short way; wherefore the war chariot was invented, he says, to carry the fighting man from point to point (leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 573). mr. leaf elaborates these points: "why did not the homeric heroes ride? because no man could carry such a shield on horseback." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 573.] we reply that men could and did carry such shields on horseback, as we know on the evidence of works of art and poetry of the eleventh to twelfth centuries a.d. mr. ridgeway has explained the introduction of chariots as the result of horses too small to carry a heavy and heavily-armed man as a cavalier. the shield ([greek: aspis]), we are told by followers of reichel, was only worn by princes who could afford to keep chariots, charioteers, and squires of the body to arm and disarm them. but this can scarcely be true, for all the comrades of diomede had the shield ([greek: aspis], _iliad_, x. 152), and the whole host of pandarus of troy, a noted bowman, were shield-bearers ([greek: aspistaon laon], _iliad_, iv. 90), and some of them held their shields ([greek: sakae]) in front of pandarus when he took a treacherous shot at menelaus (iv. 113). the whole host could not have chariots and squires, we may presume, so the chariot was not indispensable to the _écuyer_ or shield-bearing man. the objections to this conjecture of reichel are conspicuous, as we now prove. no mycenaean work of art shows us a shielded man in a chariot; the men with the monstrous shields are always depicted on foot. the only modern peoples who, to our knowledge, used a leather shield of the mycenaean size and even of a mycenaean shape had no horses and chariots, as we shall show. the ancient eastern peoples, such as the khita and egyptians, who fought from chariots, carried _small_ shields of various forms, as in the well-known picture of a battle between the khita, armed with spears, and the bowmen of rameses ii, who kill horse and man with arrows from their chariots, and carry no spears; while the khita, who have no bows, merely spears, are shot down as they advance. [footnote: maspero, _hist. ancienne_, ii. p. 225.]. egyptians and khita, who fight from chariots, use _small_ bucklers, whence it follows that war chariots were not invented, or, at least, were not retained in use, for the purpose of giving mobility to men wearing gigantic shields, under which they could not hurry from point to point. war chariots did not cease to be used in egypt, when men used small shields. moreover, homeric warriors can make marches under shield, while there is no mention of chariots to carry them to the point where they are to lie in ambush (odyssey, xiv. 470-510). if the shield was so heavy as to render a chariot necessary, would homer make hector trudge a considerable distance under shield, while achilles, under shield, sprints thrice round the whole circumference of troy? helbig notices several other cases of long runs under shield. either reichel is wrong, when he said that the huge shield made the use of the war chariot necessary, or the poet is "late"; he is a man who never saw a large shield like hector's, and, though he speaks of such shields, he thinks that men could walk and run under them. when men did walk or run under shield, or ride, if they ever rode, they would hang it over the left side, like the lion-hunters on the famous inlaid dagger of mycenae, [footnote: for the chariots, _cf_. reichel, _homerische waffen_, 120_ff_. wien, 1901.] or the warrior on the chessman referred to above (p. 111). aias, again, the big, brave, stupid porthos of the _iliad_, has the largest shield of all, "like a tower" (this shield cannot have been circular), and is recognised by his shield. but he never enters a chariot, and, like odysseus, has none of his own, because both men come from rugged islands, unfit for chariot driving. odysseus has plenty of shields in his house in ithaca, as we learn from the account of the battle with the wooers in the _odyssey;_ yet, in ithaca, as at troy, he kept no chariot. here, then, we have nations who fight from chariots, yet use small shields, and heroes who wear enormous shields, yet never own a chariot. clearly, the great shield cannot have been the cause of the use of the war chariot, as in the theory of reichel. aias and his shield we meet in _iliad_, vii. 206-220. "he clothed himself upon his flesh in _all_ his armour" ([greek: teuchea]), to quote mr. leaf's translation; but the poet only _describes_ his shield: his "towerlike shield of bronze, with sevenfold ox-hide, that tychius wrought him cunningly; tychius, the best of curriers, that had his home in hyle, who made for him his glancing shield of sevenfold hides of stalwart bulls, and overlaid the seven with bronze." the shield known to homer then is, in this case, so tall as to resemble a tower, and has bronze plating over bull's hide. by tradition from an age of leather shields the currier is still the shield-maker, though now the shield has metal plating. it is fairly clear that greek tradition regarded the shield of aias as of the kind which covered the body from chin to ankles, and resembled a bellying sail, or an umbrella unfurled, and drawn in at the sides in the middle, so as to offer the semblance of two bellies, or of one, pinched in at or near the centre. this is probable, because the coins of salamis, where aias was worshipped as a local hero of great influence, display this shield as the badge of the aeginetan dynasty, claiming descent from aias. the shield is bossed, or bellied out, with two half-moons cut in the centre, representing the _waist_, or pinched--in part, of the ancient mycenaean shield; the same device occurs on a mycenaean ring from aegina in the british museum. [footnote: evans, _journal of hellenic studies_, xiii. 213-216.] in a duel with aias the spear of hector pierced the bronze and six layers of hide on his shield, but stuck in the seventh. the spear of aias went through the circular (or "every way balanced") huge shield of hector, and through his corslet and _chiton_, but hector had doubled himself up laterally ([greek: eklinthae], vii. 254), and was not wounded. the next stroke of aias pierced his shield, and wounded his neck; hector replied with a boulder that lighted on the centre of the shield of aias, "on the boss," whether that means a mere ornament or knob, or whether it was the genuine boss--which is disputed. aias broke in the shield of hector with another stone; and the gentle and joyous passage of arms was stopped. the shield of agamemnon was of the kind that "cover all the body of a man," and was "every way equal," or "circular." it was plated with twelve circles of bronze, and had twenty [greek: omphaloi], or ornamental knobs of tin, and the centre was of black cyanus (xi. 31-34). there was also a head of the gorgon, with fear and panic. the description is not intelligible, and i do not discuss it. a man could be stabbed in the middle of the belly, "under his shield" (xi. 424-425), not an easy thing to do, if shields covered the whole body to the feet; but, when a hero was leaping from his chariot (as in this case), no doubt a spear could be pushed up under the shield. the ancient irish romances tell of a _gae bulg_, a spear held in the warrior's toes, and jerked up under the shield of his enemy! shields could be held up on high, in an attack on a wall garrisoned by archers (xii. 139), the great norman shield, also, could be thus lifted. the locrians, light armed infantry, had no shields, nor bronze helmets, nor spears, but slings and bows (xiii. 714). mr. leaf suspects that this is a piece of "false archaism," but we do not think that early poets in an uncritical age are ever archaeologists, good or bad. the poet is aware that some men have larger, some smaller shields, just as some have longer and some shorter spears (xiv. 370-377); but this does not prove that the shields were of different types. a tall man might inherit the shield of a short father, or _versa_. a man in turning to fly might trip on the rim of his shield, which proves how large it was: "it reached to his feet." this accident of tripping occurred to periphetes of mycenae, but it might have happened to hector, whose shield reached from neck to ankles. [footnote: _iliad_, xv. 645-646.] achilles must have been a large man, for he knew nobody whose armour would fit him when he lost his own (though his armour fitted patroclus), he could, however, make shift with the tower-like shield of aias, he said. [illustration 1: "the vase of aristonothos"] the evidence of the iliad, then, is mainly to the effect that the heroes carried huge shields, suspended by belts, covering the body and legs. if homer means, by the epithets already cited, "of good circle" and "every way equal," that some shields of these vast dimensions were circular, we have one example in early greek art which corroborates his description. this is "the vase of aristonothos," signed by that painter, and supposed to be of the seventh century (fig. 1). on one side, the companions of odysseus are boring out the eye of the cyclops; on the other, a galley is being rowed to the attack of a ship. on the raised deck of the galley stand three warriors, helmeted and bearing spears. the artist has represented their shields as covering their right sides, probably for the purpose of showing their devices or blazons. _their_ shields are small round bucklers. on the ship are three warriors whose shields, though circular, _cover the body from chin to ankles_, as in homer. one shield bears a bull's head; the next has three crosses; the third blazon is a crab. [footnote: mon. _dell_. inst., is. pl. 4.] such personal armorial bearings are never mentioned by homer. it is not usually safe to argue, from his silence, that he is ignorant of anything. he never mentions seals or signet rings, yet they cannot but have been familiar to his time. odysseus does not seal the chest with the phaeacian presents; he ties it up with a cunning knot; there are no rings named among the things wrought by hephaestus, nor among the offerings of the wooers of penelope. [footnote: helbig citing odyssey, viii. 445-448; _iliad_, xviii. 401; odyssey, xviii. 292-301.] but, if we are to admit that homer knew not rings and seals, which lasted to the latest mycenaean times, through the dipylon age, to the very late aeginetan treasure (800 b.c.) in the british museum, and appear again in the earliest dawn of the classical age and in a cyclic poem, it is plain that all the expansionists lived in one, and that a most peculiar _ringless_ age. this view suits our argument to a wish, but it is not credible that rings and seals and engraved stones, so very common in mycenaean and later times, should have vanished wholly in the homeric time. the poet never mentions them, just as shakespeare never mentions a thing so familiar to him as tobacco. how often are finger rings mentioned in the whole mass of attic tragic poetry? we remember no example, and instances are certainly rare: liddell and scott give none. yet the tragedians were, of course, familiar with rings and seals. manifestly, we cannot say that homer knew no seals, because he mentions none; but armorial blazons on shields could be ignored by no poet of war, if they existed. meanwhile, the shields of the warriors on the vase, being circular and covering body and legs, answer most closely to homer's descriptions. helbig is reduced to suggest, first, that these shields are worn by men aboard ship, as if warriors had one sort of shield when aboard ship and another when fighting on land, and as if the men in the other vessel were not equally engaged in a sea fight. no evidence in favour of such difference of practice, by sea and land, is offered. again, helbig does not trust the artist, in this case, though the artist is usually trusted to draw what he sees; and why should he give the men in the other ship or boat small bucklers, genuine, while bedecking the warriors in the adverse vessel with large, purely imaginary shields? [footnote: helbig, _das homerische epos_, ii. pp. 313-314.] it is not in the least "probable," as helbig suggests, that the artist is shirking the trouble of drawing the figure. reichel supposes that round bucklers were novelties when the vase was painted (seventh century), and that the artist did not understand how to depict them. [footnote: _homerische waffen_, p. 47.] but he depicted them very well as regards the men in the galley, save that, for obvious aesthetic reasons, he chose to assume that the men in the galley were left-handed and wore their shields on their right arms, his desire being to display the blazons of both parties. [footnote: see the same arrangement in a dipylon vase. baumeister, _denkmaler_, iii. p. 1945.] we thus see, if the artist may be trusted, that shields, which both "reached to the feet" and were circular, existed in his time (the seventh century), so that possibly they may have existed in homer's time and survived into the age of small bucklers. tyrtaeus (late seventh century), as helbig remarks, speaks of "a _wide_ shield, covering thighs, shins, breast, and shoulders." [footnote: _tyrtaeus_, xi. 23; helbig, _das homerische epos_, ii. p. 315, note 2.] nothing can be more like the large shields of the vase of aristonothos. thus the huge circular shield seems to have been a practicable shield in actual use. if so, when homer spoke of large circular shields he may have meant large circular shields. on the dodwell pyxis of 650 to 620 b.c., a man wears an oval shield, covering him from the base of the neck to the ankles. he wears it on his left arm. [footnote: walters, _ancient pottery_, p. 316.] of shields certainly small and light, worn by the chiefs, there is not a notice in the _iliad_, unless there be a hint to that effect in the accounts of heroes running, walking considerable distances, and "stepping lightly" under shields, supposed, by the critics, to be of crushing weight. in such passages the poet may be carried away by his own _verve_, or the heroes of ancient times may be deemed capable of exertions beyond those of the poet's contemporaries, as he often tells us that, in fact, the old heroes were. a poet is not a scientific military writer; and in the epic poetry of all other early races very gross exaggeration is permitted, as in the [blank space] the old celtic romances, and, of course, the huge epics of india. in homer "the skill of the poet makes things impossible convincing," aristotle says; and it is a critical error to insist on taking homer absolutely and always _au pied de la lettre_. he seems, undeniably, to have large body-covering shields present to his mind as in common use. small shields of the greek historic period are "unknown to homer," mr. leaf says, "with a very few curious exceptions," [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 575.] detected by reichel in book x. 15 [footnote: _ibid,_ vol. i. p. 569, fig. 2.], where diomede's men sleep with their heads resting on their shields, whereas a big-bellied mycenaean shield rises, he says, too high for a pillow. but some mycenzean shields were perfectly flat; while, again, nothing could be more comfortable, as a head-rest, than the hollow between the upper and lower bulges of the mycenzean huge shield. the zulu wooden head-rest is of the same character. thus this passage in book x. does not prove that small circular shields were known to homer, nor does x. 5 13. 526-530, an obscure text in which it is uncertain whether diomede and odysseus ride or drive the horses of rhesus. they _could_ ride, as every one must see, even though equipped with great body-covering shields. true, the shielded hero could neither put his shield at his back nor in front of him when he rode; but he could hang it sidewise, when it would cover his left side, as in the early middle ages (1060-1160 a.d.). the taking of the shield from a man's shoulders (xi. 374) does not prove the shield to be small; the shield hung by the belt (_telamon_) from the shoulder. [footnote: on the other side, see reichel, _homerische waffen_, pp. 40-44. wien, 1901. we have replied to his arguments above.] so far we have the results that homer seems most familiar with vast body-covering shields; that such shields were suspended by a baldric, not worn on the left arm; that they were made of layers of hide, plated with bronze, and that such a shield as aias wore must have been tall, doubtless oblong, "like a tower," possibly it was semi-cylindrical. whether the epithets denoting roundness refer to circular shields or to the double _targe_, g-shaped, of mycenaean times is uncertain. we thus come to a puzzle of unusual magnitude. if homer does not know small circular shields, but refers always to huge shields, whereas, from the eighth century b.c. onwards, such shields were not in use (disregarding tyrtaeus, and the vase of aristonothos on which they appear conspicuously, and the dodwell pyxis), where are we? either we have a harmonious picture of war from a very ancient date of large shields, or late poets did not introduce the light round buckler of their own period. meanwhile they are accused of introducing the bronze corslets and other defensive armour of their own period. defensive armour was unknown, we are told, in the mycenaean prime, which, if true, does not affect the question. homer did not live in or describe the mycenaean prime, with its stone arrow-tips. why did the late poets act so inconsistently? why were they ignorant of small circular shields, which they saw every day? or why, if they knew them, did they not introduce them in the poems, which, we are told, they were filling with non-mycenaean greaves and corslets? this is one of the dilemmas which constantly arise to confront the advocates of the theory that the _iliad_ is a patchwork of many generations. "late" poets, if really late, certainly in every-day life knew small parrying bucklers worn on the left arm, and huge body-covering shields perhaps they rarely saw in use. they also knew, and the original poet, we are told, did not know bronze corslets and greaves. the theory of critics is that late poets introduced the bronze corslets and greaves with which they were familiar into the poems, but scrupulously abstained from alluding to the equally familiar small shields. why are they so recklessly anachronistic and "up-to-date" with the corslets and greaves, and so staunchly but inconsistently conservative about keeping the huge shields? mr. leaf explains thus: "the groundwork of the epos is mycenaean, in the arrangement of the house, in the prevalence of copper" (as compared with iron), "and, as reichel has shown, in armour. yet in many points the poems are certainly later than the prime, at least, of the mycenaean age"--which we are the last to deny. "is it that the poets are deliberately trying to present the conditions of an age anterior to their own? or are they depicting the circumstances by which they are surrounded--circumstances which slowly change during the period of the development of the epos? cauer decides for the latter alternative, _the only one which is really conceivable_ [footnote: then how is the alleged archaeology of the poet of book x. conceivable?] in an age whose views are in many ways so naïve as the poems themselves prove them to have been." [footnote: _classical review, ix. pp. 463, 464._] here we entirely side with mr. leaf. no poet, no painter, no sculptor, in a naïf, uncritical age, ever represents in art anything but what he sees daily in costume, customs, weapons, armour, and ways of life. mr. leaf, however, on the other hand, occasionally chides pieces of deliberate archaeological pedantry in the poets, in spite of his opinion that they are always "depicting the circumstances by which they are surrounded." but as huge man-covering shields are _not_ among the circumstances by which the supposed late poets were surrounded, why do they depict them? here mr. leaf corrects himself, and his argument departs from the statement that only one theory is "conceivable," namely, that the poets depict their own surroundings, and we are introduced to a new proposition. "or rather we must recognise everywhere a compromise between two opposing principles: the singer, on the one hand, has to be conservatively tenacious of the old material which serves as the substance of his song; on the other hand, he has to be vivid and actual in the contributions which he himself makes to the common stock." [footnote: _ibid._, ix. pp. 463, 464.] the conduct of such singers is so weirdly inconsistent as not to be easily credible. but probably they went further, for "it is possible that the allusions" to the corslet "may have been introduced in the course of successive modernisation such as the oldest parts of the _iliad_ seem in many cases to have passed through. but, in fact, _iliad_, xi. 234 is the only mention of a corslet in any of the oldest strata, so far as we can distinguish them, and here reichel translates _thorex_ 'shield.'" [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 578.] mr. leaf's statement we understand to mean that, when the singer or reciter was delivering an ancient lay he did not introduce any of the military gear--light round bucklers, greaves, and corslets--with which his audience were familiar. but when the singer delivers a new lay, which he himself has added to "the kernel," then he is "vivid and actual," and speaks of greaves and corslets, though he still cleaves in his new lay to the obsolete chariot, the enormous shield, and, in an age of iron, to weapons of bronze. he is a sadly inconsistent new poet! meanwhile, sixteen allusions to the corslet "can be cut out," as probably "some or all these are additions to the text made at a time when it seemed absurd to think of a man in full armour without a corslet." [footnote: _ibid_, vol. i. p. 577.] thus the reciters, after all, did not spare "the old material" in the matter of corslets. the late singers have thus been "conservatively tenacious" in clinging to chariots, weapons of bronze, and obsolete enormous shields, while they have also been "vivid and actual" and "up to date" in the way of introducing everywhere bronze corslets, greaves, and other armour unknown, by the theory, in "the old material which is the substance of their song." by the way, they have not even spared the shield of the old material, for it was of leather or wood (we have no trace of metal plating on the old mycenaean shields), and the singer, while retaining the size of it, has added a plating of bronze, which we have every reason to suppose that mycenaean shields of the prime did not present to the stone-headed arrow. this theory of singers, who are at once "conservatively tenacious" of the old and impudently radical in pushing in the new, appears to us to be logically untenable. we have, in chapter i, observed the same inconsistency in helbig, and shall have occasion to remark again on its presence in the work of that great archaeologist. the inconsistency is inseparable from theories of expansion through several centuries. "many a method," says mr. leaf, "has been proposed which, up to a certain point, seemed irresistible, but there has always been a residuum which returned to plague the inventor." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. x.] this is very true, and our explanation is that no method which starts from the hypothesis that the poems are the product of several centuries will work. the "residuum" is the element which cannot be fitted into any such hypothesis. but try the hypothesis that the poems are the product of a single age, and all is harmonious. there is no baffling "residuum." the poet describes the details of a definite age, not that of the mycenaean bloom, not that of 900-600 a.d. we cannot, then, suppose that many generations of irresponsible reciters at fairs and public festivals conservatively adhered to the huge size of the shield, while altering its material; and also that the same men, for the sake of being "actual" and up to date, dragged bronze corslets and greaves not only into new lays, but into passages of lays by old poets who had never heard of such things. consequently, the poetic descriptions of arms and armour must be explained on some other theory. if the poet, again, as others suppose--mr. ridgeway for one--knew such bronze-covered circular shields as are common in central and western europe of the bronze age, why did he sometimes represent them as extending from neck to ankles, whereas the known bronze circular shields are not of more than 2 feet 2 inches to 2 feet 6 inches in diameter? [footnote: ridgeway, _early age of greece, vol. i pp. 453, 471._] such a shield, without the wood or leather, weighed 5 lbs. 2 ozs., [footnote: _ibid., vol._ i. p. 462.] and a strong man might walk or run under it. homer's shields would be twice as heavy, at least, though, even then, not too heavy for a hector, or an aias, or achilles. i do not see that the round bronze shields of limerick, yetholm, beith, lincolnshire, and tarquinii, cited by mr. ridgeway, answer to homer's descriptions of huge shields. they are too small. but it is perfectly possible, or rather highly probable, that in the poet's day shields of various sizes and patterns coexisted. archaeology of the shields turning to archaeological evidence, we find no remains in the graves of the mycenaean prime of the bronze which covered the ox-hides of homeric shields, though we do find gold ornaments supposed to have been attached to shields. there is no evidence that the mycenaean shield was plated with bronze. but if we judge from their shape, as represented in works of mycenaean art, some of the mycenaean shields were not of wood, but of hide. in works of art, such as engraved rings and a bronze dagger (fig. 2) with pictures inlaid in other metals, the shield, covering the whole body, is of the form of a bellying sail, or a huge umbrella "up," and pinched at both sides near the centre: or is like a door, or a section of a cylinder; only one sort of shield resembles a big-bellied figure of 8. ivory models of shields indicate the same figure. [footnote: schuchardt, _schliemann's excavations_, p. 192.] a gold necklet found at enkomi, in cyprus, consists of a line of models of this mycenaean shield. [footnote: _excavations in cyprus_, pl. vii. fig. 604. a. s. murray, 1900.] [illustration: fig. 2. dagger with lion-hunters] [illustration: fig. 3.] there also exists a set of small mycenaean relics called palladia, found at mycenae, spata and in the earliest strata of the acropolis at athens. they resemble "two circles joined together so as to intersect one another slightly," or "a long oval pinched in at the middle." they vary in size from six inches to half an inch, and are of ivory, glazed ware, or glass. several such shields are engraved on mycenaean gems; one, in gold, is attached to a silver vase. the ornamentation shown on them occurs, too, on mycenaean shields in works of art; in short, these little objects are representations in miniature of the big double-bellied mycenaean shield. mr. ernest gardner concludes that these objects are the "schematised" reductions of an armed human figure, only the shield which covered the whole body is left. they are talismans symbolising an armed divinity, pallas or another. a dipylon vase (fig. 3) shows a man with a shield, possibly evolved out of this kind, much scooped out at the waist, and reaching from neck to knees. the shield covers his side, not his back or front. [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, vol. xiii. pp. 21-24.] [illustration: fig. 4.] one may guess that the original pinch at the waist of the mycenaean shield was evolved later into the two deep scoops to enable the warrior to use his arms more freely, while the shield, hanging from his neck by a belt, covered the front of his body. fig. 4 shows shields of 1060-1160 a.d. equally designed to cover body and legs. men wore shields, if we believe the artists of mycenae, when lion-hunting, a sport in which speed of foot is desirable; so they cannot have been very weighty. the shield then was hung over one side, and running was not so very difficult as if it hung over back or front (_cf._ fig. 5). the shields sometimes reach only from the shoulders to the calf of the leg. [footnote: reichel, p. 3, fig. 5, grave iii. at mycenae.] the wearer of the largest kind could only be got at by a sword-stab over the rim into the throat [footnote: _ibid_., p. 2, fig. 2.] (fig. 5). some shields of this shape were quite small, if an engraved rock-crystal is evidence; here the shield is not half so high as an adjacent goat, but it may be a mere decoration to fill the field of the gem. [footnote: reichel, p. 3, fig. 7.] [illustration: fig. 5. rings: swords and shields] other shields, covering the body from neck to feet, were sections of cylinders; several of these are represented on engraved mycenaean ring stones or on the gold; the wearer was protected in front and flank [footnote: _ibid._, p. 4, fig ii, 12; p. i, fig i.] (fig. 5). in a "maze of buildings" outside the precincts of the graves of mycenae, dr. schliemann found fragments of vases much less ancient than the contents of the sepulchres. there was a large amphora, the "warrior vase" (fig. 6). the men wear apparently a close-fitting coat of mail over a chiton, which reaches with its fringes half down the thigh. the shield is circular, with a half-moon cut out at the bottom. the art is infantile. other warriors carry long oval shields reaching, at least, from neck to shin. [footnote: schuchardt, _schliemann's_ excavations, pp. 279-285.] they wear round leather caps, their enemies have helmets. on a mycenaean painted _stele_, apparently of the same relatively late period, the costume is similar, and the shield--oval--reaches from neck to knee. [footnote: ridgeway, vol. i. p. 314.] the homeric shields do not answer to the smaller of these late and ugly representations, while, in their bronze plating, homeric shields seem to differ from the leather shields of the mycenaean prime. finally, at enkomi, near salamis, in cyprus, an ivory carving (in the british museum) shows a fighting man whose perfectly circular shield reaches from neck to knee; this is one of several figures in which mr. arthur evans finds "a most valuable illustration of the typical homeric armour." [footnote: _journal of the anthropological institute, vol. xxx. pp. 209-214, figs. 5, 6, 9._] the shield, however, is not so huge as those of aias, hector, and periphetes. i can only conclude that homer describes intermediate types of shield, as large as the mycenaean but plated with bronze, for a reason to be given later. this kind of shield, the kind known to homer, was not the invention of late poets living in an age of circular bucklers, worn on the left arm, and these supposed late poets never introduce into the epics such bucklers. what manner of military needs prompted the invention of the great mycenaean shields which, by homer's time, were differentiated by the addition of metal plating? [illustration: fig. 6. fragments of warrior vase] the process of evolution of the huge mycenaean shields, and of the homeric shields covering the body from chin to ankles, can easily be traced. the nature of the attack expected may be inferred from the nature of the defence employed. body-covering shields were, obviously, at first, _defences against showers of arrows_ tipped with stone. "in the earlier mycenaean times the arrow-head of obsidian alone appears," as in mycenaean grave iv. in the upper strata of mycenae and in the later tombs the arrow-head is usually of bronze. [footnote: tsountas and manatt, p. 206.] no man going into battle naked, without body armour, like the mycenaeans (if they had none), could protect himself with a small shield, or even with a round buckler of twenty-six inches in diameter, against the rain of shafts. in a fight, on the other hand, where man singled out man, and spears were the missiles, and when the warriors had body armour, or even when they had not, a small shield sufficed; as we see among the spear-throwing zulus and the spear-throwing aborigines of australia (unacquainted with bows and arrows), who mainly use shields scarcely broader than a bat. on the other hand, the archers of the algonquins in their wars with the iroquois, about 1610, used clubs and tomahawks but no spears, no missiles but arrows, and their leather shield was precisely the [greek: amphibrotae aspis] of homer, "covering the whole of a man." it is curious to see, in contemporary drawings (1620), mycenaean shields on red indian shoulders! in champlain's sketches of fights between french and algonquins against iroquois (1610-1620), we see the algonquins outside the iroquois stockade, which is defended by archers, sheltering under huge shields shaped like the mycenaean "tower" shield, though less cylindrical; in fact, more like the shield of the fallen hunter depicted on the dagger of mycenae. these algonquin shields partially cover the sides as well as the front of the warrior, who stoops behind them, resting the lower rim of the shield on the ground. the shields are oblong and rounded at the top, much like that of achilles [footnote: iliad, vol. ii p. 605] in mr. leaf's restoration? the sides curve inward. another shield, oval in shape and flat, appears to have been suspended from the neck, and covers an iroquois brave from chin to feet. the red indian shields, like those of mycenae, were made of leather; usually of buffalo hide, [footnote: _les voyages de sr. de champlain_, paris, 1620, f. 22: "rondache de cuir bouili, qui est d'un animal, comme le boufle."] good against stone-tipped arrows. the braves are naked, like the unshielded archers on the mycenaean silver vase fragment representing a siege (fig. 7). the description of the algonquin shields by champlain, when compared with his drawings, suggests that we cannot always take artistic representations as exact. in his designs only a few algonquins and one iroquois carry the huge shields; the unshielded men are stark naked, as on the mycenaean silver vase. but in his text champlain says that the iroquois, like the algonquins, "carried arrow-proof shields" and "a sort of armour woven of cotton thread"--homer's [greek: linothoraex] (_iliad_, ii. 259, 850). these facts appear in only one of champlain's drawings [footnote: dix's _champlain_, p. 113. appleton, new york, 1903. laverdière's _champlain_, vol. iv., plate opposite p. 85 (1870).] (fig. 8). these iroquois and algonquin shields are the armour of men exposed, not to spears, but to a hail of flint-tipped arrows. as spears came in for missiles in greek warfare, arrows did not wholly go out, but the noble warriors preferred spear and sword. [footnote: cf. archilochus, 3.] mr. ridgeway erroneously says that "no achaean warrior employs the bow for war." [footnote: _early age of greece_, i. 301.] teucer, frequently, and meriones use the bow; like pandarus and paris, on the trojan side, they resort to bow or spear, as occasion serves. odysseus, in _iliad_, book x., is armed with the bow and arrows of meriones when acting as a spy; in the _odyssey_ his skill as an archer is notorious, but he would not pretend to equal famous bowmen of an older generation, such as heracles and eurytus of oechalia, whose bow he possessed but did not take to troy. philoctetes is his master in archery. [footnote: odyssey, viii. 219-222.] [illustration: fig. 7. fragment of siege vase] the bow, however, was little esteemed by greek warriors who desired to come to handstrokes, just as it was despised, to their frequent ruin, by the scots in the old wars with england. dupplin, falkirk, halidon hill and many another field proved the error. there was much need in homeric warfare for protection against heavy showers of arrows. mr. monro is hardly correct when he says that, in homer, "we do not hear of _bodies_ of archers, of arrows darkening the air, as in descriptions of oriental warfare." [footnote: _ibid._, vol. ii. 305.] these precise phrases are not used by homer; but, nevertheless, arrows are flying thick in his battle pieces. the effects are not often noticed, because, in homer, helmet, shield, corslet, _zoster_, and greaves, as a rule prevent the shafts from harming the well-born, well-armed chiefs; the nameless host, however, fall frequently. when hector came forward for a parley (_iliad_, iii. 79), the achaens "kept shooting at him with arrows," which he took unconcernedly. teucer shoots nine men in _iliad_, viii. 297-304. in xi. _85_ the shafts ([greek: belea]) showered and the common soldiers fell--[misprint] being arrows as well as thrown spears. [footnote: _iliad_, iv. 465; xvi. 668, 678.] agamemnon and achilles are as likely, they say, to be hit by arrow as by spear (xi. 191; xxi. 13). machaon is wounded by an arrow. patroclus meets eurypylus limping, with an arrow in his thigh--archer unknown. [footnote: _iliad_, xi. 809, 810.] meriones, though an achaean paladin, sends a bronze-headed arrow through the body of harpalion (xiii. _650_). the light-armed locrians are all bowmen and slingers (xiii. 716). acamas taunts the argives as "bowmen" (xiv. 479). "the war-cry rose on both sides, and the arrows leaped from the bowstrings" (xv. 313). manifestly the arrows are always on the wing, hence the need for the huge homeric and mycenaean shields. therefore, as the achaeans in homer wore but flimsy corslets (this we are going to prove), the great body-covering shield of the mycenaean prime did not go out of vogue in homer's time, when bronze had superseded stone arrow-heads, but was strengthened by bronze plating over the leather. in a later age the bow was more and more neglected in greek warfare, and consequently large shields went out, after the close of the mycenaean age, and round parrying bucklers came into use. the greeks appear never to have been great archers, for some vases show even the old heroes employing the "primary release," the arrow nock is held between the thumb and forefinger--an ineffectual release. [footnote: c. j. longman, _archery_. badminton series.] the archers in early greek art often stoop or kneel, unlike the erect archers of old england; the bow is usually small--a child's weapon; the string is often drawn only to the breast, as by pandarus in the _iliad_ (iv. i 23). by 730 b.c. the release with three fingers, our western release, had become known. [footnote: leaf _iliad_, vol. i. p. 585.] [illustration: fig. 8.--algonquin corslet. from laverdiere, _oeuvres de champlain_, vol. iv. fol. 4. quebec, 1870.] the course of evolution seems to be: (1) the mycenaean prime of much archery, no body armour (?); huge leather "man-covering" shields are used, like those of the algonquins; (2) the same shields strengthened with metal, light body armour-thin corslets--and archery is frequent, but somewhat despised (the homeric age); (3) the parrying shield of the latest mycenaean age (infantry with body armour); (4) the ionian hoplites, with body armour and small circular bucklers. it appears, then, that the monstrous mycenaean shield is a survival of an age when bows and arrows played the same great part as they did in the wars of the algonquins and iroquois. the celebrated picture of a siege on a silver vase, of which fragments were found in grave iv., shows archers skirmishing; there is an archer in the lion hunt on the dagger blade; thirty-five obsidian arrow-heads were discovered in grave iv., while "in the upper strata of mycenae and in the later tombs the arrow-head is usually of bronze, though instances of obsidian still occur." in 1895 dr. tsountas found twenty arrow-heads of bronze, ten in each bundle, in a mycenaean chamber tomb. messrs. tsountas and manatt say, "in the acropolis graves at mycenae... the spear-heads were but few... arrow-heads, on the contrary, are comparatively abundant." they infer that "picked men used shield and spear; the rank and file doubtless fought simply with bow and sling." [footnote: tsountas and manatt, zog. [sic]]. the great mycenaean shield was obviously evolved as a defence against arrows and sling-stones flying too freely to be parried with a small buckler. what other purpose could it have served? but other defensive armour was needed, and was evolved, by homer's men, as also, we shall see, by the algonquins and iroquois. the algonquins and iroquois thus prove that men who thought their huge shields very efficient, yet felt the desirableness of the protection afforded by corslets, for they wore, in addition to their shields, such corslets as they were able to manufacture, made of cotton, and corresponding to the homeric [greek: linothoraex]. [footnote: in the interior of some shields, perhaps of all, were two [greek: kanones] (viii 193; xiii. 407). these have been understood as meaning a brace through which the left arm went, and another brace which the left hand grasped. herodotus says that the carians first used shield grips, and that previously shields were suspended by belts from the neck and left shoulder (herodotus, i. 171). it would be interesting to know how he learned these facts-perhaps from homer; but certainly the homeric shield is often described as suspended by a belt. mr. leaf used to explain the [greek: kanones] (xiii. 407) as "serving to attach the two ends of the baldrick to the shield" (_hellenic_ society's _journal_, iv. 291), as does mr. ridgeway. but now he thinks that they were two pieces of wood, crossing each other, and making the framework on which the leather of the shield was stretched. the hero could grasp the cross-bar, at the centre of gravity, in his left hand, rest the lower rim of the shield on the ground, and crouch behind it (xi. 593; xiii 157). in neither passage cited is anything said about resting the lower rim "on the ground," and in the second passage the warrior is actually advancing. in this attitude, however-grounding the lower rim of the great body-covering shield, and crouching behind it--we see algonquin warriors of about 1610 in champlain's drawings of red indian warfare.] mr. leaf, indeed, when reviewing reichel, says that "the use of the mycenaean shield is inconsistent with that of the metal breastplate; 'the shield' covers the wearer in a way which makes a breastplate an useless encumbrance; or rather, it is ignorance of the breastplate which alone can explain the use of such frightfully cumbrous gear as the huge shield." [footnote: _classical review_, ix. p. 55. 1895.] but the algonquins and iroquois wore such breastplates as they could manufacture, though they also used shields of great size, suspended, in mycenaean fashion, from the neck and shoulder by a _telamon_ or belt. the knights of the eleventh century a.d., in addition to very large shields, wore ponderous hauberks or byrnies, as we shall prove presently. as this combination of great shield with corslet was common and natural, we cannot agree with mr. leaf when he says, "it follows that the homeric warriors wore no metal breastplate, and that all the passages where the [greek: thoraes] is mentioned are either later interpolations or refer to some other sort of armour," which, _ex hypothesi_, would itself be superfluous, given the body-covering shield. shields never make corslets superfluous when men can manufacture corslets. the facts speak for themselves: the largest shields are not exclusive, so to speak, of corslets; the homeric warriors used both, just as did red indians and the mediaeval chivalry of europe. the use of the aspis in homer, therefore, throws no suspicion on the concomitant use of the corslet. the really surprising fact would be if late poets, who knew only small round bucklers, never introduced them into the poems, but always spoke of enormous shields, while they at the same time did introduce corslets, unknown to the early poems which they continued. clearly reichel's theory is ill inspired and inconsistent. this becomes plain as soon as we trace the evolution of shields and corslets in ages when the bow played a great part in war. the homeric bronze-plated shield and bronze corslet are defences of a given moment in military evolution; they are improvements on the large leather shield of mycenaean art, but, as the arrows still fly in clouds, the time for the small parrying buckler has not yet come. by the age of the dipylon vases with human figures, the shield had been developed into forms unknown to homer. in fig. 3 (p. 131) we see one warrior with a fantastic shield, slim at the waist, with horns, as it were, above and below; the greater part of the shield is expended uselessly, covering nothing in particular. in form this targe seems to be a burlesque parody of the figure of a mycenaean shield. the next man has a short oblong shield, rather broad for its length--perhaps a reduction of the mycenaean door-shaped shield. the third warrior has a round buckler. all these shields are manifestly post-homeric; the first type is the most common in the dipylon art; the third survived in the eighth-century buckler. [illustration: fig. 9.-gold corslet] chapter viii the breastplate no "practicable" breastplates, hauberks, corslets, or any things of the kind have so far been discovered in graves of the mycenaean prime. a corpse in grave v. at mycenae had, however, a golden breastplate, with oval bosses representing the nipples and with prettily interlaced spirals all over the remainder of the gold (fig. 9). another corpse had a plain gold breastplate with the nipples indicated. [footnote: schuchardt, _schliemann's_ excavations, pp. 254-257, fig. 256.] these decorative corslets of gold were probably funereal symbols of practicable breastplates of bronze, but no such pieces of armour are worn by the fighting-men on the gems and other works of art of mycenae, and none are found in mycenaean graves. but does this prove anything? leg-guards, broad metal bands clasping the leg below the knee, are found in the mycenaean shaft graves, but are never represented in mycenaean art. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 575.] meanwhile, bronze corslets are very frequently mentioned in the "rarely alluded to," says mr. leaf, [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 576.] but this must be a slip of the pen. connected with the breastplate or _thorex_ ([greek: thoraex]) is the verb [greek: thoraesso, thoraessethai], which means "to arm," or "equip" in general. the achaeans are constantly styled in the _iliad_ and in the _odyssey_ "_chalkochitones_," "with bronze chitons." epics have therefore boldly argued that by "bronze chitons" the poet pleasantly alludes to shields. but as the mycenaeans seem scarcely to have worn any _chitons_ in battle, as far as we are aware from their art, and are not known to have had any bronze shields, the argument evaporates, as mr. ridgeway has pointed out. nothing can be less like a _chiton_ or smock, loose or tight, than either the double-bellied huge shield, the tower-shaped cylindrical shield, or the flat, doorlike shield, covering body and legs in mycenaean art. "the bronze _chiton_," says helbig, "is only a poetic phrase for the corslet." reichel and mr. leaf, however, think that "bronze chitoned" is probably "a picturesque expression... and refers to the bronze-covered shield." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, i. 578.] the breastplate covered the upper part of the _chiton_, and so might be called a "bronze _chiton_," above all, if it had been evolved, as corselets usually have been, out of a real _chiton_, interwoven with small plates or rings of bronze. the process of evolution might be from a padded linen _chiton_ ([greek: linothooraes]) worn by teucer, and on the trojan side by amphius (as by nervous protestants during oates's "popish plot"), to a leathern _chiton_, strengthened by rings, or studs, or scales of bronze, and thence to plates. [footnote: ridgeway, _early age of greece_, vol. i. pp. 309, 310.] here, in this armoured _chiton_, would be an object that a poet might readily call "a _chiton_ of bronze." but that, if he lived in the mycenaean age, when, so far as art shows, _chitons_ were not worn at all, or very little, and scarcely ever in battle, and when we know nothing of bronze-plating on shields, the poet should constantly call a monstrous double-bellied leather shield, or any other mycemean type of shield, "a _bronze chiton_," seems almost unthinkable. "a leather cloak" would be a better term for such shields, if cloaks were in fashion. according to mr. myres (1899) the "stock line" in the _iliad_, about piercing a [greek: poludaidalos thoraex] or corslet, was inserted "to satisfy the practical criticisms of a corslet-wearing age," the age of the later poets, the age of iron. but why did not such practical critics object to the constant presence in the poems of bronze weapons, in their age out of date, if they objected to the absence from the poems of the corslets with which they were familiar? mr. myres supposes that the line about the [greek: poludaidalos] corslet was already old, but had merely meant "many-glittering body clothing"--garments set with the golden discs and other ornaments found in mycemean graves. the bronze corslet, he says, would not be "many glittering," but would reflect "a single star of light." [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies._ 1899] now, first, even if the star were a single star, it would be as "many glittering" when the warrior was in rapid and changeful motion as the star that danced when beatrix was born. secondly, if the contemporary corslets of the iron age were not "many glittering," practical corslet-wearing critics would ask the poet, "why do you call corslets 'many glittering'?" thirdly, [greek: poludaidalos] may surely be translated "a thing of much art," and greek corslets were incised with ornamental designs. thus messrs. hogarth and bosanquet report "a very remarkable 'mycemean' bronze breastplate" from crete, which "shows four female draped figures, the two central ones holding a wreath over a bird, below which is a sacred tree. the two outer figures are apparently dancing. it is probably a ritual scene, and may help to elucidate the nature of early aegean cults." [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies, vol. xx_. p. 322. 1899.] here, [greek: poludaidalos]--if that word means "artistically wrought." helbig thinks the epics silent about the gold spangles on dresses. [footnote: helbig, p. 71.] mr. myres applauds reichel's theory that [blank space] first meant a man's chest. if _thorex_ means a man's breast, then _thorex_ in a secondary sense, one thinks, would mean "breastplate," as waist of a woman means, first, her waist; next, her blouse (american). but mr. myres and reichel say that the secondary sense of _thorex_ is not breastplate but "body clothing," as if a man were all breast, or wore only a breast covering, whereas mycenaean art shows men wearing nothing on their breasts, merely drawers or loin-cloths, which could not be called _thorex_, as they cover the antipodes of the breast. the verb [greek: thoraesestai], the theory runs on, merely meant "to put on body clothing," which mycenaeans in works of art, if correctly represented, do not usually put on; they fought naked or in bathing drawers. surely we might as well argue that a "waistcoat" might come to mean "body clothing in general," as that a word for the male breast became, first, a synonym for the covering of the male buttocks and for apparel in general, and, next, for a bronze breastplate. these arguments appear rather unconvincing, [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, vol. xx. pp. 149, 150.] nor does mycenaean art instruct us that men went into battle dressed in body clothing which was thickly set with many glittering gold ornaments, and was called "a many-glittering _thorex_." further, if we follow reichel and mr. leaf, the mycenaeans wore _chitons_ and called them _chitons_. they also used bronze-plated shields, though of this we have no evidence. taking the bronze-plated (?) shield to stand poetically for the _chiton_, the poet spoke of "_the bronze-chitoned achaeans_" but, if we follow mr. myres, the mycenaeans also applied the word _thorex_ to body clothing at large, in place of the word _chiton_; and when a warrior was transfixed by a spear, they said that his "many-glittering, gold-studded _thorex_," that is, his body clothing in general, was pierced. it does seem simpler to hold that _chiton_ meant _chiton_; that _thorex_ meant, first, "breast," then "breastplate," whether of linen, or plaited leather, or bronze, and that to pierce a man through his [greek: poludaidalos thoraex] meant to pierce him through his handsome corslet. no mortal ever dreamt that this was so till reichel tried to make out that the original poet describes no armour except the large mycenaean shield and the _mitrê_, and that all corslets in the poems were of much later introduction. possibly they were, but they had plenty of time wherein to be evolved long before the eighth century, reichel's date for corslets. the argument is that a man with a large shield needs no body armour, or uses the shield because he has no body armour. but the possession and use of a large shield did not in the middle ages, or among the iroquois and algonquins, make men dispense with corslets, even when the shield was worn, as in homer, slung round the neck by a _telamon_ (_guige_ in old french), belt, or baldric. we turn to a french _chanson de geste--la chancun de willem_--of the twelfth century a.d., to judge by the handwriting. one of the heroes, girard, having failed to rescue vivien in battle, throws down his weapons and armour, blaming each piece for having failed him. down goes the heavy lance; down goes the ponderous shield, suspended by a _telamon: "ohitarge grant cume peises al col_!" down goes the plated byrnie, "_ohi grant broine cum me vas apesant_" [footnote: _la chancun de willame_, lines 716-726.] the mediaeval warrior has a heavy byrnie as well as a great shield suspended from his neck. it will be remarked also that the algonquins and iroquois of the beginning of the seventeenth century, as described by champlain, give us the whole line of mycenaean evolution of armour up to a certain point. not only had they arrow-proof, body-covering shields of buffalo hide, but, when champlain used his arquebus against the iroquois in battle, "they were struck amazed that two of their number should have been killed so promptly, seeing that they wore a sort of armour, woven of cotton thread, and carried arrow-proof shields." we have already alluded to this passage, but must add that parkman, describing from french archives a battle of illinois against iroquois in 1680, speaks of "corslets of tough twigs interwoven with cordage." [footnote: _discovery of the great iv_, [misprint] 1869.] golden, in his _five nations_, writes of the red indians as wearing "a kind of cuirass made of pieces of wood joined together." [footnote: dix, _champlion_ [misprint]] to the kindness of mr. hill tout i also owe a description of the armour of the indian tribes of north-west america, from a work of his own. he says: "for protective purposes in warfare they employed shields and coat-armour. the shields varied in form and material from tribe to tribe. among the interior salish they were commonly made of wood, which was afterwards covered with hide. sometimes they consisted of several thicknesses of hide only. the hides most commonly used were those of the elk, buffalo, or bear. after the advent of the hudson's bay co. some of the indians used to beat out the large copper kettles they obtained from the traders and make polished circular shields of these. in some centres long rectangular shields, made from a single or double hide, were employed. these were often from 4 to 5 feet in length and from 3 to 4 feet in width--large enough to cover the whole body. among the déné tribes (sikanis) the shield was generally made of closely-woven wicker-work, and was of an ovaloid form (exact size not given). "the coat armour was _everywhere used_, and varied in form and style in almost every centre. there were two ways in which this was most commonly made. one of these was the slatted cuirass or corslet, which was formed of a series of narrow slats of wood set side by side vertically and fastened in place by interfacings of raw hide. it went all round the body, being hung from the shoulders with straps. the other was a kind of shirt of double or treble elk hide, fastened at the side with thongs. another kind of armour, less common than that just described, was the long elk-hide tunic, which reached to and even _below the knees and was sleeved to the elbow."_ mr. hill tout's minute description, with the other facts cited, leaves no doubt that even in an early stage, as in later stages of culture, the use of the great shield does not exclude the use of such body armour as the means of the warriors enable them to construct. to take another instance, pausanias describes the corslets of the neolithic sarmatae, which he saw dedicated in the temple of asclepius at athens. corslets these bowmen and users of the lasso possessed, though they did not use the metals. they fashioned very elegant corslets out of horses' hoofs, cutting them into scales like those of a pine cone, and sewing them on to cloth. [footnote: pausanias, i. 211. [misprint] 6.] certain small, thin, perforated discs of stone found in scotland have been ingeniously explained as plates to be strung together on a garment of cloth, a neolithic _chiton_. however this may be, since iroquois and algonquins and déné had some sort of woven, or plaited, or wooden, or buff corslet, in addition to their great shields, we may suppose that the achaeans would not be less inventive. they would pass from the [greek: linothoraex] (answering to the cotton corslet of the iroquois) to a sort of jack or _jaseran_ with rings, scales, or plates, and thence to bronze-plate corslets, represented only by the golden breastplates of the mycenaean grave. even if the mycenaeans did not evolve the corslet, there is no reason why, in the homeric times, it should not have been evolved. for linen corslets, such as homer mentions, in actual use and represented in works of art we consult mr. leaf on _the armour_ of _homeric_ heroes.' he finds memnon in a white corslet, on a black-figured vase in the british museum. there is another white corsleted [footnote: _journal_ of _hellenic_ studies, vol. iv. pp. 82, 83, 85.] memnon figured in the _vases peints_ of the duc de luynes (plate xii.). mr. leaf suggests that the white colour represents "a corslet not of metal but of linen," and cites _iliad_, ii. 529, 5 30. "xenophon mentions linen corslets as being worn by the chalybes" (_anabasis_, iv. 15). two linen corslets, sent from egypt to sparta by king amasis, are recorded by herodotus (ii. 182; iii. 47). the corslets were of linen, embroidered in cotton and gold. such a piece of armour or attire might easily develop into the [greek: streptos chitoon] of _iliad_, v. 113, in which aristarchus appears to have recognised chain or scale armour; but we find no such object represented in mycenaean art, which, of course, does not depict homeric armour or costume, and it seems probable that the bronze corslets mentioned by homer were plate armour. the linen corslet lasted into the early sixth century b.c. in the poem called _stasiotica_, alcaeus (_no_. 5) speaks of his helmets, bronze greaves and corslets of linen ([choorakes te neoi linoo]) as a defence against arrows. meanwhile a "bronze _chiton_" or corslet would turn spent arrows and spent spears, and be very useful to a warrior whose shield left him exposed to shafts shot or spears thrown from a distance. again, such a bronze _chiton_ might stop a spear of which the impetus was spent in penetrating the shield. but homeric corslets did not, as a rule, avail to keep out a spear driven by the hand at close quarters, or powerfully thrown from a short distance. even the later greek corslets do not look as if they could resist a heavy spear wielded by a strong hand. i proceed to show that the homeric corslet did not avail against a spear at close quarters, but could turn an arrow point (once), and could sometimes turn a spear which had perforated a shield. so far, and not further, the homeric corslet was serviceable. but if a warrior's breast or back was not covered by the shield, and received a thrust at close quarters, the corslet was pierced more easily than the pad of paper which was said to have been used as secret armour in a duel by the master of sinclair (1708). [footnote: _proceedings in court marshal held upon john, master of sinclair_. sir walter scott. roxburghe club. (date of event, 1708.)] it is desirable to prove this feebleness of the corslet, because the poet often says that a man was smitten with the spear in breast or back when unprotected by the shield, without mentioning the corslet, whence it is argued by the critics that corslets were not worn when the original lays were fashioned, and that they have only been sporadically introduced, in an after age when the corslet was universal, by "modernising" later rhapsodists aiming at the up-to-date. a weak point is the argument that homer says back or breast was pierced, without mentioning the corslet, whence it follows that he knew no corslets. quintus smyrnaeus does the same thing. of course, quintus knew all about corslets, yet (book i. 248, 256, 257) he makes his heroes drive spear or sword through breast or belly without mentioning the resistance of the corslet, even when (i. 144, 594) he has assured us that the victim was wearing a corslet. these facts are not due to inconsistent interpolation of corslets into the work of this post-christian poet quintus. [footnote: i find a similar omission in the _chanson de roland_.] corslets, in homer, are flimsy; that of lycaon, worn by paris, is pierced by a spear which has also perforated his shield, though the spear came only from the weak hand of menelaus (_iliad_, iii. 357, 358). the arrow of pandarus whistles through the corslet of menelaus (iv. 136). the same archer pierces with an arrow the corslet of diomede (v. 99, 100). the corslet of diomede, however, avails to stop a spear which has traversed his shield (v. 281). the spear of idomeneus pierces the corslet of othryoneus, and the spear of antilochus perforates the corslet of a charioteer (xiii. 371, 397). a few lines later diomede's spear reaches the midriff of hypsenor. no corslet is here mentioned, but neither is the shield mentioned (this constantly occurs), and we cannot argue that hypsenor wore no corslet, unless we are also to contend that he wore no shield, or a small shield. idomeneus drives his spear through the "_bronze chiton_" of alcathöus (xiii. 439, 440). mr. leaf reckons these lines "probably an interpolation to turn the linen _chiton_, the rending of which is the sign of triumph, into a bronze corslet." but we ask why, if an editor or rhapsodist went through the _iliad_ introducing corslets, he so often left them out, where the critics detect their absence because they are not mentioned? the spear of idomeneus pierces another feeble corslet over the victim's belly (xiii. 506-508). it is quite a surprise when a corslet does for once avail to turn an arrow (xiii. 586-587). but aias drives his spear through the corslet of phorcys, into his belly (xvii 311-312). thus the corslet scarcely ever, by itself, protects a hero; it never protects him against an unspent spear; even when his shield stands between his corslet and the spear both are sometimes perforated. yet occasionally the corslet saves a man when the spear has gone through the shield. the poet, therefore, sometimes gives us a man pierced in a part which the corslet covers, without mentioning the flimsy article that could not keep out a spear. reichel himself came to see, before his regretted death, that he could not explain away the _thorex_ or corslet, on his original lines, as a mere general name for "a piece of armour"; and he inclined to think that jacks, with metal plates sewn on, did exist before the ionian corslet. [footnote: _homerische waffen_, pp. 93-94. 1901.] the gold breastplates of the mycenaean graves pointed in this direction. but his general argument is that corslets were interpolated into the old lays by poets of a corslet-wearing age; and mr. leaf holds that corslets may have filtered in, "during the course of successive modernisation, such as the oldest parts of the _iliad_ seem in many cases to have passed through," [footnote: leaf, iliad, i. p. 578.] though the new poets were, for all that, "conservatively tenacious of the old material." we have already pointed out the difficulty. the poets who did not introduce the new small bucklers with which they were familiar, did stuff the _iliad_ full of corslets unknown, by the theory, to the original poet, but familiar to rhapsodists living centuries later. why, if they were bent on modernising, did they not modernise the shields? and how, if they modernised unconsciously, as all uncritical poets do, did the shield fail to be unconsciously "brought up to date"? it seems probable that homer lived at a period when both huge shield and rather feeble corslet were in vogue. we shall now examine some of the passages in which mr. leaf, mainly following reichel, raises difficulties about corslets. we do not know their mechanism; they were composed of [greek: guala], presumed to be a backplate and a breastplate. the word _gualon_ appears to mean a hollow, or the converse, something convex. we cannot understand the mechanism (see a young man putting on a corslet, on an amphora by euthymides. walter, vol. ii. p. 176); but, if late poets, familiar with such corslets, did not understand how they worked, they were very dull men. when their descriptions puzzle us, that is more probably because we are not at the point of view than because poets interpolated mentions of pieces of armour which they did not understand, and therefore cannot have been familiar with, and, in that case, would not introduce. mr. leaf starts with a passage in the _iliad_ (iii. 357-360)--it recurs in another case: "through the bright shield went the ponderous spear, and through the inwrought" (very artfully wrought), [greek: poludaidalou] "breastplate it pressed on, and straight beside his flank it rent the tunic, but he swerved and escaped black death." mr. leaf says, "it is obvious that, after a spear has passed through a breastplate, there is no longer any possibility for the wearer to bend aside and so to avoid the point...." but i suppose that the wearer, by a motion very natural, doubled up sideways, so to speak, and so the spear merely grazed his flesh. that is what i suppose the poet to intend. the more he knew of corslets, the less would he mention an impossible circumstance in connection with a corslet. again, in many cases the late poets, by the theory--though it is they who bring the corslets in--leave the corslets out! a man without shield, helmet, and spear calls himself "naked." why did not these late poets, it is asked, make him take off his corslet, if he had one, as well as his shield? the case occurs in xxii. 111-113,124-125. hector thinks of laying aside helmet, spear, and shield, and of parleying with achilles. "but then he will slay me naked," that is, unarmed. "he still had his corslet," the critics say, "so how could he be naked? or, if he had no corslet, this is a passage uncontaminated by the late poets of the corslet age." now certainly hector _was_ wearing a corslet, which he had taken from patroclus: that is the essence of the story. he would, however, be "naked" or unprotected if he laid aside helmet, spear, and shield, because achilles could hit him in the head or neck (as he did), or lightly drive the spear through the corslet, which, we have proved, was no sound defence against a spear at close quarters, though useful against chance arrows, and occasionally against spears spent by traversing the shield. we next learn that no corslet occurs in the _odyssey_, or in _iliad_, book x., called "very late": mr. leaf suggests that it is of the seventh century b.c. but if the odyssey and iliad, book x., are really very late, their authors and interpolators were perfectly familiar with ionian corslets. why did they leave corslets out, while their predecessors and contemporaries were introducing them all up and down the _iliad_? in fact, in book x, no prince is regularly equipped; they have been called up to deliberate in the dead of night, and when two go as spies they wear casual borrowed gear. it is more important that no corslet is mentioned in nestor's arms in his tent. but are we to explain this, and the absence of mention of corslets in the odyssey (where there is little about regular fighting), on the ground that the author of _iliad_, book x., and all the many authors and editors of the _odyssey_ happened to be profound archaeologists, and, unlike their contemporaries, the later poets and interpolators of the _iliad_, had formed the theory that corslets were not known at the time of the siege of troy and therefore must not be mentioned? this is quite incredible. no hypothesis can be more improbable. we cannot imagine late ionian rhapsodists listening to the _iliad_, and saying, "these poets of the _iliad_ are all wrong: at the date of the mycenaean prime, as every educated man knows, corslets were not yet in fashion. so we must have no corslets in the _odyssey_?" a modern critic, who thinks this possible, is bringing the practice of archaising poets of the late nineteenth century into the minds of rhapsodists of the eighth century before christ. artists of the middle of the sixteenth century always depict jeanne d'arc in the armour and costume of their own time, wholly unlike those of 1430. this is the regular rule. late rhapsodists would not delve in the archaeology of the mycenaean prime. indeed, one does not see how they could discover, in asia, that corslets were not worn, five centuries earlier, on the other side of the sea. we are told that aias and some other heroes are never spoken of as wearing corslets. but aias certainly did put on a set of pieces of armour, and did not trust to his shield alone, tower-like as it was. the description runs thus: the achaeans have disarmed, before the duel of aias and hector. aias draws the lucky lot; he is to 'meet hector, and bids the others pray to zeus "while i clothe me in my armour of battle." while they prayed, aias "arrayed himself in flashing bronze. and when he had now clothed upon his flesh _all_ his pieces of armour" ([greek: panta teuchae]) "he went forth to fight." if aias wore only a shield, as on mr. leaf's hypothesis, he could sling it on before the achaeans could breathe a _pater noster_. his sword he would not have taken off; swords were always worn. what, then, are "all his pieces of armour"? (vii. 193, 206). carl robert cites passages in which the [greek: teuchea], taken from the shoulders, include corslets, and are late and ionian, with other passages which are mycenaean, with no corslet involved. he adds about twenty more passages in which [greek: teuchea] include corslets. among these references two are from the _doloneia_ (x. 254, 272), where reichel finds no mention of corslets. how robert can tell [greek: teuchea], which mean corslets, from [greek: teuchea], which exclude corslets, is not obvious. but, at all events, he does see corslets, as in vii. 122, where reichel sees none, [footnote: robert, _studien zur ilias_, pp. 20-21.] and he is obviously right. it is a strong point with mr. leaf that "we never hear of the corslet in the case of aias...." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 576.] robert, however, like ourselves, detects the corslet among "_al_ the [greek: teuchea]" which aias puts on for his duel with hector (iliad, vii. 193, 206-207). in the same book (vii. 101-103, 122) the same difficulty occurs. menelaus offers to fight hector, and says, "i will put on my harness" [greek: thooraxomai], and does "put on his fair pieces of armour" [greek: teuchea kala], agamemnon forbids him to fight, and his friends "joyfully take his pieces of armour" [greek: teuchea] "from his shoulders" (_iliad_, vii. 206-207). they take off pieces of armour, in the plural, and a shield cannot be spoken of in the plural; while the sword would not be taken off--it was worn even in peaceful costume. idomeneus is never named as wearing a corslet, but he remarks that he has plenty of corslets (xiii. 264); and in this and many cases opponents of corslets prove their case by cutting out the lines which disprove it. anything may be demonstrated if we may excise whatever passage does not suit our hypothesis. it is impossible to argue against this logical device, especially when the critic, not satisfied with a clean cut, supposes that some late enthusiast for corslets altered the prayer of thetis to hephaestus for the very purpose of dragging in a corslet. [footnote: leaf, note to _iliad_, xviii. 460, 461.] if there is no objection to a line except that a corslet occurs in it, where is the logic in excising the line because one happens to think that corslets are later than the oldest parts of the _iliad_? another plan is to maintain that if the poet does not in any case mention a corslet, there was no corslet. thus in v. 99, an arrow strikes diomede "hard by the right shoulder, the plate of the corslet." thirteen lines later (v. 112, 113) "sthenelus drew the swift shaft right through out of diomede's shoulder, and the blood darted up through the pliant _chiton_." we do not know what the word here translated "pliant" [greek: streptos] means, and aristarchus seems to have thought it was "a coat of mail, chain, or scale armour." if so, here is the corslet, but in this case, if a corslet or jack with intertwisted small plates or scales or rings of bronze be meant, _gualon_ cannot mean a large "plate," as it does. mr. ridgeway says, "it seems certain that [greek: streptos chitoon] means, as aristarchus held, a shirt of mail." [footnote: _early age of greece_, vol. i. p, 306.] mr. leaf says just the reverse. as usual, we come to a deadlock; a clash of learned opinion. but any one can see that, in the space of thirteen lines, no poet or interpolator who wrote v. i 12, i 13 could forget that diomede was said to be wearing a corslet in v. 99; and even if the poet could forget, which is out of the question, the editor of 540 b.c. was simply defrauding his employer, piaistratus, if he did not bring a remedy for the stupid fault of the poet. when this or that hero is not specifically said to be wearing a corslet, it is usually because the poet has no occasion to mention it, though, as we have seen, a man is occasionally smitten, in the midriff, say, without any remark on the flimsy piece of mail. that corslets are usually taken for granted as present by the poet, even when they are not explicitly named, seems certain. he constantly represents the heroes as "stripping the pieces of mail" [greek: teuchea], when they have time and opportunity, from fallen foes. if only the shield is taken, if there is nothing else in the way of bronze body armour to take, why have we the plural, [greek: teuchea]? the corslet, as well as the shield, must be intended. the stripping is usually "from the shoulders," and it is "from his shoulders" that hector hopes to strip the corslet of diomede (iliad, viii. 195) in a passage, to be sure, which the critics think interpolated. however this may be, the stripping of the (same greek characters), cannot be the mere seizure of the shield, but must refer to other pieces of armour: "all the pieces of armour." so other pieces of defensive armour besides the shield are throughout taken for granted. if they were not there they could not be stripped. it is the chitons that agamemnon does something to, in the case of two fallen foes (_iliad_, xi. 100), and aristarchus thought that these _chitons_ were corslets. but the passage is obscure. in _iliad_, xi. 373, when diomede strips helmet from head, shield from shoulder, corslet from breast of agastrophus, reichel was for excising the corslet, because it was not mentioned when the hero was struck on the hip joint. i do not see that an inefficient corslet would protect the hip joint. to do that, in our eighteenth century cavalry armour, was the business of a _zoster_, as may be seen in a portrait of the chevalier de st. george in youth. it is a thick ribbed _zoster_ that protects the hip joints of the king. finally, mr. evans observes that the western invaders of egypt, under rameses iii, are armed, on the monuments, with cuirasses formed of a succession of plates, "horizontal, or rising in a double curve," while the enkomi ivories, already referred to, corroborate the existence of corslet, _zoster_, and _zoma_ as articles of defensive armour. [footnote: _journal of anthropological institute_, xxx. p. 213.] "recent discoveries," says mr. evans, "thus supply a double corroboration of the homeric tradition which carries back the use of the round shield and the cuirass or [greek: thoraex] to the earlier epic period... with such a representation before us, a series of homeric passages on which dr. reichel... has exhausted his powers of destructive criticism, becomes readily intelligible." [footnote: ibid., p. 214.] homer, then, describes armour _later_ than that of the mycenaean prime, when, as far as works of art show, only a huge leathern shield was carried, though the gold breastplates of the corpses in the grave suggest that corslets existed. homer's men, on the other hand, have, at least in certain cases quoted above, large bronze-plated shields and bronze cuirasses of no great resisting power, perhaps in various stages of evolution, from the byrnie with scales or small plates of bronze to the breastplate and backplate, though the plates for breast and back certainly appear to be usually worn. it seems that some critics cannot divest themselves of the idea that "the original poet" of the "kernel" was contemporary with them who slept in the shaft graves of mycenae, covered with golden ornaments, and that for body armour he only knew their monstrous shields. mr. leaf writes: "the armour of homeric heroes corresponds closely to that of the mykenaean age as we learn it from the monuments. the heroes wore no breastplate; their only defensive armour was the enormous mykenaean shield...." this is only true if we excise all the passages which contradict the statement, and go on with mr. leaf to say, "by the seventh century b.c., or thereabouts, the idea of a panoply without a breastplate had become absurd. by that time the epic poems had almost ceased to grow; but they still admitted a few minor episodes in which the round shield" (where (?) "and corslet played a part, as well as the interpolation of a certain number of lines and couplets in which the new armament was mechanically introduced into narratives which originally knew nothing of it." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 568.] on the other hand, mr. leaf says that "the small circular shield of later times is unknown to homer," with "a very few curious exceptions," in which the shields are not said to be small or circular. [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p, 575.] surely this is rather arbitrary dealing! we start from our theory that the original poet described the armour of "the monuments" though _they_ are "of the prime," while he professedly lived long after the prime--lived in an age when there must have been changes in military equipment. we then cut out, as of the seventh century, whatever passages do not suit our theory. anybody can prove anything by this method. we might say that the siege scene on the mycenaean silver vase represents the mycenaean prime, and that, as there is but one jersey among eight men otherwise stark naked, we must cut out seven-eighths of the _chitons_ in the _iliad_, these having been interpolated by late poets who did not run about with nothing on. we might call the whole poem late, because the authors know nothing of the mycenaean bathing-drawers so common on the "monuments." the argument compels mr. leaf to assume that a shield can be called [greek: teuchea] in the plural, so, in _iliad_, vii. 122, when the squires of menelaus "take the [greek: teuchea] from his shoulders," we are assured that "the shield (aspis) was for the chiefs alone" (we have seen that all the host of pandarus wore shields), "for those who could keep a chariot to carry them, and squires to assist them in taking off this ponderous defence" (see vii 122). [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 583.] we do "see vii. 122," and find that not a _single_ shield, but pieces of gear in the plural number were taken off menelaus. the feeblest warrior without any assistance could stoop his head and put it through the belt of his shield, as an angler takes off his fishing creel, and there he was, totally disarmed. no squire was needed to disarm him, any more than to disarm girard in the _chancun de willame_. nobody explains why a shield is spoken of as a number of things, in the plural, and that constantly, and in lines where, if the poet means a shield, prosody permits him to _say_ a shield, [greek: therapontes ap oopoon aspid elonto]. it really does appear that reichel's logic, his power of visualising simple things and processes, and his knowledge of the evolution of defensive armour everywhere, were not equal to his industry and classical erudition. homer seems to describe what he saw: shields, often of great size, made of leather, plated with bronze, and suspended by belts; and, for body armour, feeble bronze corslets and _zosters_. there is nothing inconsistent in all this: there was no more reason why an homeric warrior should not wear a corslet as well as a shield than there was reason why a mediaeval knight who carried a _targe_ should not also wear a hauberk, or why an iroquois with a shield should not also wear his cotton or wicker-work armour. defensive gear kept pace with offensive weapons. a big leather shield could keep out stone-tipped arrows; but as bronze-tipped arrows came in and also heavy bronze-pointed spears, defensive armour was necessarily strengthened; the shield was plated with bronze, and, if it did not exist before, the bronze corslet was developed. to keep out stone-tipped arrows was the business of the mycenaean wooden or leather shield. "bronze arrow-heads, so common in the _iliad_, are never found," says schuchardt, speaking of schliemann's mycenaean excavations. [footnote: schuchardt, p. 237.] there was thus, as far as arrows went, no reason why mycenaean shields should be plated with bronze. if the piece of wood in grave v. was a shield, as seems probable, what has become of its bronze plates, if it had any? [footnote: schuchardt, p. 269] gold ornaments, which could only belong to shields, [footnote: _ibid_., p. 237.] were found, but bronze shield plates never. the inference is certain. the mycenaean shields of the prime were originally wooden or leather defences against stone-headed arrows. homer's shields are bronze-plated shields to keep out bronze-headed or even, perhaps, iron-pointed arrows of primitive construction (iv. 123). homer describes armour based on mycenaean lines but developed and advanced as the means of attack improved. where everything is so natural it seems fantastic to explain the circumstances by the theory that poets in a late age sometimes did and sometimes did not interpolate the military gear of four centuries posterior to the things known by the original singer. these rhapsodists, we reiterate, are now said to be anxiously conservative of mycenaean detail and even to be deeply learned archaeologists. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 629.] at other times they are said to introduce recklessly part of the military gear of their own age, the corslets, while sternly excluding the bucklers. all depends on what the theory of very late developments of the epic may happen to demand at this or that moment. again, mr. leaf informs us that "the first rhapsodies were born in the bronze age, in the day of the ponderous mycenaean shield; the last in the iron age, when men armed themselves with breastplate and light round buckler." [footnote: _ibid_., vol. ii. p. x.] we cannot guess how he found these things out, for corslets are as common in one "rhapsody" as in another when circumstances call for the mention of corslets, and are entirely unnamed in the odyssey (save that the achaeans are "bronze-chitoned"), while the odyssey is alleged to be much later than the _iliad_. as for "the iron age," no "rhapsodist" introduces so much as one iron spear point. it is argued that he speaks of bronze in deference to tradition. then why does he scout tradition in the matter of greaves and corslets, while he sometimes actually goes behind tradition to find mycenaean things unknown to the original poets? these theories appear too strangely inconsistent; really these theories cannot possibly be accepted. the late poets, of the theory, are in the iron age, and are, of course, familiar with iron weapons; yet, in conservative deference to tradition, they keep them absolutely out of their rhapsodies. they are equally familiar with bronze corslets, so, reckless this time of tradition, they thrust them even into rhapsodies which are centuries older than their own day. they are no less familiar with small bucklers, yet they say nothing about them and cling to the traditional body-covering shield. the source of the inconsistent theories which we have been examining is easily discovered. the scholars who hold these opinions see that several things in the homeric picture of life are based on mycenaean facts; for example, the size of the shields and their suspension by baldrics. but the scholars also do steadfastly believe, following the wolfian tradition, that there could be no _long_ epic in the early period. therefore the greater part, much the greater part of the _iliad_, must necessarily, they say, be the work of continuators through several centuries. critics are fortified in this belief by the discovery of inconsistencies in the epic, which, they assume, can only be explained as the result of a compilation of the patchwork of ages. but as, on this theory, many men in many lands and ages made the epic, their contributions cannot but be marked by the inevitable changes in manners, customs, beliefs, implements, laws, weapons, and so on, which could not but arise in the long process of time. yet traces of change in law, religion, manners, and customs are scarcely, if at all, to be detected; whence it logically follows that a dozen generations of irresponsible minstrels and vagrant reciters were learned, conscientious, and staunchly conservative of the archaic tone. their erudite conservatism, for example, induced them, in deference to the traditions of the bronze age, to describe all weapons as of bronze, though many of the poets were living in an age of weapons of iron. it also prompted them to describe all shields as made on the far-away old mycenaean model, though they were themselves used to small circular bucklers, with a bracer and a grip, worn on the left arm. but at this point the learning and conservatism of the late poets deserted them, and into their new lays, also into the old lays, they eagerly introduced many unwarrantable corslets and greaves--things of the ninth to seventh centuries. we shall find helbig stating, on the same page, that in the matter of usages "the epic poets shunned, as far as possible, all that was recent," and also that for fear of puzzling their military audiences they did the reverse: "they probably kept account of the arms and armour of their own day." [footnote: la _question mycénienne_, p. 50. _cf_. note i.] now the late poets, on this showing, must have puzzled warriors who used iron weapons by always speaking of bronze weapons. they pleased the critical warriors, on the other hand, by introducing the corslets and greaves which every military man of their late age possessed. but, again, the poets startled an audience which used light bucklers, worn on the left arm, by talking of enormous _targes_, slung round the neck. all these inconsistencies of theory follow from the assumption that the _iliad_ _must_ be a hotch-potch of many ages. if we assume that, on the whole, it is the work of one age, we see that the poet describes the usages which obtained in his own day. the dead are cremated, not, as in the mycenaean prime, inhumed. the shield has been strengthened to meet bronze, not stone-tipped, arrows by bronze plates. corslets and greaves have been elaborated. bronze, however, is still the metal for swords and spears, and even occasionally for tools and implements, though these are often of iron. in short, we have in homer a picture of a transitional age of culture; we have not a medley of old and new, of obsolete and modern. the poets do not describe inhumation, as they should do, if they are conservative archaeologists. in that case, though they burn, they would have made their heroes bury their dead, as they did at mycenas. they do not introduce iron swords and spears, as they must do, if, being late poets, they keep in touch with the armament of their time. if they speak of huge shields only because they are conservative archaeologists, then, on the other hand, they speak of corslets and greaves because they are also reckless innovators. they cannot be both at once. they are depicting a single age, a single "moment in culture." that age is certainly sundered from the mycenaean prime by the century or two in which changing ideas led to the superseding of burial by burning, or it is sundered from the mycenaean prime by a foreign conquest, a revolution, and the years in which the foreign conquerors acquired the language of their subjects. in either alternative, and one or other must be actual, there was time enough for many changes in the culture of the mycenaean prime to be evolved. these changes, we say, are represented by the descriptions of culture in the iliad. that hypothesis explains, simply and readily, all the facts. the other hypothesis, that the _iliad_ was begun near the mycenaean prime and was continued throughout four or five centuries, cannot, first, explain how the _iliad_ was _composed_, and, next, it wanders among apparent contradictories and through a maze of inconsistencies. the zoster, zoma, and mitre we are far from contending that it is always possible to understand homer's descriptions of defensive armour. but as we have never seen the actual objects, perhaps the poet's phrases were clear enough to his audience and are only difficult to us. i do not, for example, profess to be sure of what happened when pandarus shot at menelaus. the arrow lighted "where the golden buckles of the _zoster_ were clasped, and the doubled breastplate met them. so the bitter arrow alighted upon the firm _zoster_; through the wrought _zoster_ it sped, and through the curiously wrought breastplate it pressed on, and through the _mitre_ he wore to shield his flesh, a barrier against darts; and this best shielded him, yet it passed on even through this," and grazed the hero's flesh (_iliad_, iv. i 32 seq.). menelaus next says that "the glistering _zoster_ in front stayed the dart, and the _zoma_ beneath, and the _mitrê_ that the coppersmiths fashioned" (iv. 185-187). then the surgeon, machaon, "loosed the glistering _zoster_ and the _zoma_, and the _mitrê_ beneath that the coppersmiths fashioned" (iv. 215, 216). reading as a mere student of poetry i take this to mean that the corslet was of two pieces, fastening in the middle of the back and the middle of the front of a man (though mr. monro thinks that the plates met and the _zoster_ was buckled at the side); that the _zoster_, a mailed belt, buckled just above the place where the plates of the corslet met; that the arrow went through the meeting-place of the belt buckles, through the place where the plates of the corslet met, and then through the _mitrê_, a piece of bronze armour worn under the corslet, though the nature of this _mitrê_ and of the _zoma_ i do not know. was the _mitrê_ a separate article or a continuation of the breastplate, lower down, struck by a dropping arrow? in 1883 mr. leaf wrote: "i take it that the _zoma_ means the waist of the cuirass which is covered by the _zoster_, and has the upper edge of the _mitrê_ or plated apron beneath it fastened round the warrior's body. ... this view is strongly supported by all the archaic vase paintings i have been able to find." [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies, vol. iv. pp. 74,75_.] we see a "corslet with a projecting rim"; that rim is called zoma and holds the _zoster_. "the hips and upper part of the thighs were protected either by a belt of leather, sometimes plated, called the _mitrê_, or else only by the lower part of the _chiton_, and this corresponds exactly with homeric description." [footnote: _journal of hellenic_ studies, _pp. 76, 77_.] at this time, in days before reichel, mr. leaf believed in bronze corslets, whether of plates or plated jacks; he also believed, we have seen, that the huge shields, as of aias, were survivals in poetry; that "homer" saw small round bucklers in use, and supposed that the old warriors were muscular enough to wear circular shields as great as those in the vase of aristonothos, already described. [footnote: _ibid., vol. iv p. 285_.] on the corslet, as we have seen, mr. leaf now writes as a disciple of reichel. but as to the _mitrê_, he rejects helbig's and mr. ridgeway's opinion that it was a band of metal a foot wide in front and very narrow behind. such things have been found in euboea and in italy. mr. ridgeway mentions examples from bologna, corneto, este, hallstatt, and hungary. [footnote: _early age of greece, p. 31 i_.] the _zoster_ is now, in mr. leaf's opinion, a "girdle" "holding up the waist-cloth (_zoma_), so characteristic of mycenaean dress!" reichel's arguments against corslets "militate just as strongly against the presence of such a _mitrê_, which is, in fact, just the lower half of a corslet.... the conclusion is that the metallic _mitrê_ is just as much an intruder into the armament of the _epos_ as the corslet." the process of evolution was, mr. leaf suggests, first, the abandonment of the huge shield, with the introduction of small round bucklers in its place. then, second, a man naturally felt very unprotected, and put on "the metallic _mitrê_" of helbig (which covered a foot of him in front and three inches behind). "only as technical skill improved could the final stage, that of the elaborate cuirass, be attained." this appears to us an improbable sequence of processes. while arrows were flying thick, as they do fly in the _iliad_, men would not reject body-covering shields for small bucklers while they were still wholly destitute of body armour. nor would men arm only their stomachs when, if they had skill enough to make a metallic _mitrê_, they could not have been so unskilled as to be unable to make corslets of some more or less serviceable type. probably they began with huge shields, added the _linothorex_ (like the iroquois cotton _thorex_), and next, as a rule, superseded that with the bronze _thorex_, while retaining the huge shield, because the bronze _thorex_ was so inadequate to its purpose of defence. then, when archery ceased to be of so much importance as coming to the shock with heavy spears, and as the bronze _thorex_ really could sometimes keep out an arrow, they reduced the size of their shields, and retained surface enough for parrying spears and meeting point and edge of the sword. that appears to be a natural set of sequences, but i cannot pretend to guess how the corslet fastened or what the _mitrê_ and _zoster_ really were, beyond being guards of the stomach and lower part of the trunk. helmets, greaves, spears no helmets of metal, such as homer mentions, have been found in mycenaean graves. a quantity of boars' teeth, sixty in all, were discovered in grave v. and may have adorned and strengthened leather caps, now mouldered into dust. an ivory head from mycenae shows a conical cap set with what may be boars' tusks, with a band of the same round the chin, and an earpiece which was perhaps of bronze? spata and the graves of the lower town of mycenae and the enkomi ivories show similar headgear. [footnote: tsountas and manatt, pp. 196, 197.] this kind of cap set with boars' tusks is described in _iliad_, book x., in the account of the hasty arraying of two spies in the night of terror after the defeat and retreat to the ships. the trojan spy, dolon, also wears a leather cap. the three spies put on no corslets, as far as we can affirm, their object being to remain inconspicuous and unburdened with glittering bronze greaves and corslets. the trojan camp was brilliantly lit up with fires, and there may have been a moon, so the less bronze the better. in these circumstances alone the heroes of the iliad are unequipped, certainly, with bronze helmets, corslets, and bronze greaves. [dislocated footnote: evans, _journal of the anthropological institute, xxx. pp._ 209-215.] [footnote: _iliad, x._ 255-265.] the author of book x. is now regarded as a precise archaeologist, who knew that corslets and bronze helmets were not used in agamemnon's time, but that leather caps with boars' tusks were in fashion; while again, as we shall see, he is said to know nothing about heroic costume (cf. the _doloneia_). as a fact, he has to describe an incident which occurs nowhere else in homer, though it may often have occurred in practice--a hurried council during a demoralised night, and the hasty arraying of two spies, who wish to be lightfooted and inconspicuous. the author's evidence as to the leather cap and its garnishing of boars' tusks testifies to a survival of such gear in an age of bronze battle-helmets, not to his own minute antiquarian research. greaves bronze greaves are not found, so far, in mycenaean tombs in greece, and reichel argued that the original homer knew none. the greaves, [greek: kunmides] "were gaiters of stuff or leather"; the one mention of bronze greaves is stuff and nonsense interpolated (vii. 41). but why did men who were interpolating bronze corslets freely introduce bronze so seldom, if at all, as the material of greaves? bronze greaves, however, have been found in a cypro-mycenaean grave at enkomi (tomb xv.), _accompanied_ by _an early type_ of _bronze_ dagger, while bronze greaves adorned with mycenaean ornament are discovered in the balkan peninsula at glassinavç. [footnote: evans, _journal of the anthropological institute,_ pp. 214, 215, figs. 10, 11.] thus all homer's description of arms is here corroborated by archaeology, and cannot be cut out by what mr. evans calls "the procrustean method" of dr. reichel. a curious feature about the spear may be noticed. in book x. while the men of diomede slept, "their spears were driven into the ground erect on the spikes of the butts" (x. 153). aristotle mentions that this was still the usage of the illyrians in his day. [footnote: _poctica_, 25.] though the word for the spike in the butt (_sauroter_) does not elsewhere occur in the _iliad_, the practice of sticking the spears erect in the ground during a truce is mentioned in iii. 135: "they lean upon their shields" (clearly large high shields), "and the tall spears are planted by their sides." no butt-spikes have been found in graves of the mycenaean prime. the _sauroter_ was still used, or still existed, in the days of herodotus. [footnote: tsountas and manatt, p. 205; ridgeway, vol. i. pp. 306, 307.] on the whole, homer does not offer a medley of the military gear of four centuries--that view we hope to have shown to be a mass of inconsistencies--but describes a state of military equipment in advance of that of the most famous mycenaean graves, but other than that of the late "warrior vase." he is also very familiar with some uses of iron, of which, as we shall see, scarcely any has been found in mycenaean graves of the central period, save in the shape of rings. homer never mentions rings of any metal. chapter ix bronze and iron taking the iliad and odyssey just as they have reached us they give, with the exception of one line, an entirely harmonious account of the contemporary uses of bronze and iron. bronze is employed in the making of weapons and armour (with cups, ornaments, &c.); iron is employed (and bronze is also used) in the making of tools and implements, such as knives, axes, adzes, axles of a chariot (that of hera; mortals use an axle tree of oak), and the various implements of agricultural and pastoral life. meanwhile, iron is a substance perfectly familiar to the poets; it is far indeed from being a priceless rarity (it is impossible to trace homeric stages of advance in knowledge of iron), and it yields epithets indicating strength, permanence, and stubborn endurance. these epithets are more frequent in the odyssey and the "later" books of the iliad than in the "earlier" books of the iliad; but, as articles made of iron, the odyssey happens to mention only one set of axes, which is spoken of ten times--axes and adzes as a class--and "iron bonds," where "iron" probably means "strong," "not to be broken." [footnote: in these circumstances, it is curious that mr. monro should have written thus: "in homer, as is well known, iron is rarely mentioned in comparison with bronze, but the proportion is greater in the odyssey (25 iron, 80 bronze) than in the iliad" (23 iron, 279 bronze).--monro, odyssey, vol. ii. p. 339. these statistics obviously do not prove that, at the date of the composition of the odyssey, the use of iron was becoming more common, or that the use of bronze was becoming more rare, than when the _iliad_ was put together. bronze is, in the poems, the military metal: the _iliad_ is a military poem, while the _odyssey_ is an epic of peace; consequently the _iliad_ is much more copious in references to bronze than the _odyssey_ has any occasion to be. wives are far more frequently mentioned in the odyssey than in the _iliad_, but nobody will argue that therefore marriage had recently come more into vogue. again, the method of counting up references to iron in the odyssey is quite misleading, when we remember that ten out of the twenty references are only _one_ reference to one and the same set of iron tools-axes. mr. monro also proposed to leave six references to iron in the _iliad_ out of the reckoning, "as all of them are in lines which can be omitted without detriment to the sense." most of the six are in a recurrent epic formula descriptive of a wealthy man, who possesses iron, as well as bronze, gold, and women. the existence of the formula proves familiarity with iron, and to excise it merely because it contradicts a theory is purely arbitrary.--monro, odyssey, vol. ii. p. 339.]. the statement of facts given here is much akin to helbig's account of the uses of bronze and iron in homer. [footnote: helbig, _das homerischi epos_, pp. 330, 331. _1887_.] helbig writes: "it is notable that in the epic there is much more frequent mention of iron _implements_ than of iron _weapons of war_." he then gives examples, which we produce later, and especially remarks on what achilles says when he offers a mass of iron as a prize in the funeral games of patroclus. the iron, says achilles, will serve for the purposes of the ploughman and shepherd, "a surprising speech from the son of peleus, from whom we rather expect an allusion to the military uses of the metal." of course, if iron weapons were not in vogue while iron was the metal for tools and implements, the words of achilles are appropriate and intelligible. the facts being as we and helbig agree in stating them, we suppose that the homeric poets sing of the usages of their own time. it is an age when iron, though quite familiar, is not yet employed for armour, or for swords or spears, which must be of excellent temper, without great weight in proportion to their length and size. iron is only employed in homer for some knives, which are never said to be used in battle (not even for dealing the final stab, like the mediaeval poniard, the _miséricorde_), for axes, which have a short cutting edge, and may be thick and weighty behind the edge, and for the rough implements of the shepherd and ploughman, such as tips of ploughshares, of goads, and so forth. as far as archaeological excavations and discoveries enlighten us, these relative uses of bronze and iron did not exist in the ages of mycenaean culture which are represented in the _tholos_ of vaphio and the graves, earlier and later, of mycenae. even in the later mycenaean graves iron is found only in the form of finger rings (iron rings were common in late greece). [footnote: tsountas and manatt, pp. 72, 146, 165.] iron was scarce in the cypro-mycenaean graves of enkomi. a small knife with a carved handle had left traces of an iron blade. a couple of lumps of iron, one of them apparently the head of a club, were found in schliemann's "burned city" at hissarlik; for the rest, swords, spear-heads, knives, and axes are all of bronze in the age called "mycenaean." but we do not know whether iron _implements_ may not yet be found in the sepulchres of _thetes_, and other poor and landless men. the latest discoveries in minoan graves in crete exhibit tools of bronze. iron, we repeat, is in the poems a perfectly familiar metal. ownership of "bronze, gold, and iron, which requires much labour" (in the smithying or smelting), appears regularly in the recurrent epic formula for describing a man of wealth. [footnote: _iliad_, vi. 48; ix. 365-366; x. 379; xi. 133; _odyssey_, xiv. 324; xxi. 10.] iron, bronze, slaves, and hides are bartered for sea-borne wine at the siege of troy? [footnote: _iliad_, vii. 472-475.] athene, disguised as mentes, is carrying a cargo of iron to temesa (tamasus in cyprus?), to barter for copper. the poets are certainly not describing an age in which only a man of wealth might indulge in the rare and extravagant luxury of an iron ring: iron was a common commodity, like cattle, hides, slaves, bronze, and other such matters. common as it was, homer never once mentions its use for defensive armour, or for swords and spears. only in two cases does homer describe any weapon as of iron. there is to be sure the "iron," the knife with which antilochus fears achilles will cut his own throat. [footnote: _iliad_ xviii. 34.] but no knife is ever used as a weapon of war: knives are employed in cutting the throats of victims (see _iliad_, iii. 271 and xxiii. 30); the knife is said to be of iron, in this last passage; also patroclus uses the knife to cut the arrow-head out of the flesh of a wounded friend. [footnote: _iliad_, xi. 844.] it is the _knife_ of achilles that is called "the iron," and on "the iron" perish the cattle in _iliad_, xxiii. 30. mr. leaf says that by "the usual use, the metal" (iron) "is confined to tools of small size." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, xxiii. 30, note.] this is incorrect; the odyssey speaks of _great axes_ habitually made of iron. [footnote: odyssey, ix. 391.] but we do find a knife of bronze, that of agamemnon, used in sacrificing victims; at least so i infer from iliad, iii. 271-292. the only two specimens of _weapons_ named by homer as of iron are one arrow-head, used by pandarus, [footnote: _iliad_, iv. 123.] and one mace, borne, before nestor's time, by areithöus. to fight with an iron mace was an amiable and apparently unique eccentricity of areithbus, and caused his death. on account of his peculiar practice he was named "the mace man." [footnote: iliad, vii. 141.] the case is mentioned by nestor as curious and unusual. mr. leaf gets rid of this solitary iron _casse tête_ in a pleasant way. since he wrote his _companion to the iliad_, 1902, he has become converted, as we saw, to the theory, demolished by mr. monro, nutzhorn, and grote, and denounced by blass, that the origin of our homer is a text edited by some literary retainer of pisistratus of athens (about 560-540 b.c.). the editor arranged current lays, "altered" freely, and "wrote in" as much as he pleased. probably he wrote this passage in which nestor describes the man of the iron mace, for "the tales of nestor's youthful exploits, all of which bear the mark of late work, are introduced with no special applicability to the context, but rather with the intention of glorifying the ancestor of pisistratus." [footnote: iliad (1900), vii. 149, note.] if pisistratus was pleased with the ancestral portrait, nobody has a right to interfere, but we need hardly linger over this hypothesis (cf. pp. 281-288). iron axes are offered as prizes by achilles, [footnote: iliad, xxiii. 850.] and we have the iron axes of odysseus, who shot an arrow through the apertures in the blades, at the close of the odyssey. but all these axes, as we shall show, were not weapons, but _peaceful implements_. as a matter of certain fact the swords and spears of homer's warriors are invariably said by the poet to be of bronze, not of iron, in cases where the metal of the weapons is specified. except for an arrow-head (to which we shall return) and the one iron mace, noted as an eccentricity, no weapon in homer is ever said to be of iron. the richest men use swords of bronze. not one chooses to indulge in a sword said to be of iron. the god, hephaestus, makes a bronze sword for achilles, whose own bronze sword was lent to patroclus, and lost by him to hector. [footnote: _iliad_ xvi. 136; xix. 372-373.] this bronze sword, at least, achilles uses, after receiving the divine armour of the god. the sword of paris is of bronze, as is the sword of odysseus in the odyssey. [footnote: _iliad_, iii. 334-335] bronze is the sword which he brought from troy, and bronze is the sword presented to him by euryalus in phaeacia, and bronze is the spear with which he fought under the walls of ilios. [footnote: _odyssey_, x. 162, 261-262] there are other examples of bronze swords, while spears are invariably said to be of bronze, when the metal of the spear is specified. here we are on the ground of solid certainty: we see that the homeric warrior has regularly spear and sword of bronze. if any man used a spear or sword of iron, homer never once mentions the fact. if the poets, in an age of iron weapons, always spoke of bronze, out of deference to tradition, they must have puzzled their iron-using military patrons. thus, as regards weapons, the homeric heroes are in the age of bronze, like them who slept in the tombs of the mycenaean age. when homer speaks of the use of cutting instruments of iron, he is always concerned, except in the two cases given, not with [blank space] but with _implements_, which really were of iron. the wheelwright fells a tree "with the iron," that is, with an axe; antilochus fears that achilles "will cut his own throat with the iron," that is, with his knife, a thing never used in battle; the cattle struggle when slain with "the iron," that is, the butcher's knife; and odysseus shoots "through the iron," that is, through the holes in the blade of the iron axes. [footnote: for this peculiar kind of mycenaean axe with holes in the blade, see the design of a bronze example from vaphio in tsountas and manatt, _the mycenaean age_, p. 207, fig. 94.] thus homer never says that this or that was done "with the iron" in the case of any but one weapon of war. pandarus "drew the bow-string to his breast and to the bow." [footnote: iliad, w. 123.] whoever wrote that line was writing in an age, we may think, when arrow-heads were commonly of iron; but in homer, when the metal of the arrow-head is mentioned, except, in this one case, it is always bronze. the iron arrow-tip of pandarus was of an early type, the shaft did not run into the socket of the arrow-head; the tang of the arrow-head, on the other hand, entered the shaft, and was whipped on with sinew. [_iliad_, iv. 151.] pretty primitive this method, still the iron is an advance on the uniform bronze of homer. the line about pandarus and the iron arrow-head may really be early enough, for the arrow-head is of a primitive kind--socketless--and primitive is the attitude of the archer: he "drew the arrow to his breast." on the mycenaean silver bowl, representing a siege, the archers draw to the breast, in the primitive style, as does the archer on the bronze dagger with a representation of a lion hunt. the assyrians and khita drew to the ear, as the monuments prove, and so does the "cypro-mycenaean" archer of the ivory draught-box from enkomi. [footnote: evans, journal of the anthropological institute, vol. xxx. p. 210.] in these circumstances we cannot deny that the poet may have known iron arrow-heads. we now take the case of axes. we never hear from homer of the use of an iron axe in battle, and warlike use of an axe only occurs twice. in _iliad_, xv. 711, in a battle at and on the ships, "they were fighting with sharp axes and battle-axes" ([greek text: axinai]) "and with great swords, and spears armed at butt and tip." at and on the ships, men would set hand to whatever tool of cutting edge was accessible. seiler thinks that only the trojans used the battle-axe; perhaps for damaging the ships: he follows the scholiast. [greek text: axinae], however, [footnote: _iliad_, xiii. 611.] may perhaps be rendered "battle-axe," as a trojan, peisandros, fights with an [greek text: axinae], and this is the only place in the _iliad_, except xv. 711, where the thing is said to be used as a weapon. but it is not an _iron_ axe; it is "of fine bronze." only one bronze _battle-axe_, according to dr. joseph anderson, is known to have been found in scotland, though there are many bronze heads of axes which were tools. axes ([greek text: pelekeis]) were _implements_, tools of the carpenter, woodcutter, shipwright, and so on; they were not weapons of war of the achaeans. as implements they are, with very rare exceptions, of iron. the wheelwright fells trees "with the gleaming iron," iron being a synonym for axe and for knife. [footnote: _iliad_, iv. 485] in _iliad_, xiii. 391, the shipwrights cut timber with axes. in _iliad_, xxiii. 114, woodcutters' axes are employed in tree-felling, but the results are said to be produced [greek text: tanaaekei chalcho], "by the long-edged bronze," where the word [greek text: tanaaekaes] is borrowed from the usual epithet of swords; "the long edge" is quite inappropriate to a woodcutter's axe. on calypso's isle calypso gives to odysseus a bronze axe for his raft-making. butcher's work is done with an axe. [footnote: _iliad_, xvii. 520; odyssey, iii. 442-449.] the axes offered by achilles as a prize for archers and the axes through which odysseus shot are _implements_ of iron. [footnote: _iliad_, xxiii. 850; odyssey, xxi. 3, 81, 97.] in the odyssey, when the poet describes the process of tempering iron, we read, "as when a smith dips a great axe or an adze in chill water, for thus men temper iron." [footnote: odyssey, ix. 391-393.] he is not using iron to make a sword or spear, but a tool-adze or axe. the poet is perfectly consistent. there are also examples both of bronze axes and, apparently, of bronze knives. thus, though the woodcutter's or carpenter's axe is of bronze in two passages cited, iron is the usual material of the axe or adze. again we saw, when achilles gives a mass of iron as a prize in the games, he does not mean the armourer to fashion it into sword or spear, but says that it will serve the shepherd or ploughman for domestic implements, [footnote: leaf, _iliad_ (1902), xxiii. line 30, note.] so that the men need not, on an upland farm, go to the city for iron implements. in commenting upon this mr. leaf is scarcely at the proper point of view. he says, [footnote: _iliad_, xxiii. 835, note.] "the idea of a state of things when the ploughman and shepherd forge their own tools from a lump of raw iron has a suspicious appearance of a deliberate attempt to represent from the inner consciousness an archaic state of civilisation. in homeric times the [greek: chalceus] is already specialised as a worker in metals...." however, homer does not say that the ploughman and shepherd "forge their own tools." a homeric chief, far from a town, would have his own smithy, just as the laird of runraurie (now urrard) had his smithy at the time of the battle of killicrankie (1689). mackay's forces left their _impedimenta_ "at the laird's smithy," says an eye-witness. [footnote: napier's _life_ of _dundee_, iii. p. 724.] the idea of a late homeric poet trying to reconstruct from his fancy a prehistoric state of civilisation is out of the question. even historical novelists of the eighteenth century a.d. scarcely attempted such an effort. this was the regular state of things in the highlands during the eighteenth century, when many chiefs, and most of the clans, lived far from any town. but these rural smiths did not make sword-blades, which prince charles, as late as 1750, bought on the continent. the andrea ferrara-marked broadsword blades of the clans were of foreign manufacture. the highland smiths did such rough iron work as was needed for rural purposes. perhaps the homeric chief may have sometimes been a craftsman like the heroes of the sagas, great sword-smiths. odysseus himself, notably an excellent carpenter, may have been as good a sword-smith, but every hero was not so accomplished. in searching with microscopes for homeric discrepancies and interpolations, critics are apt to forget the ways of old rural society. the homeric poems, whether composed in one age or throughout five centuries, are thus entirely uniform in allotting bronze as the material for all sorts of warlike gear, down to the solitary battle-axe mentioned; and iron as the usual metal for heavy tools, knives, carpenters' axes, adzes, and agricultural implements, with the rare exceptions which we have cited in the case of bronze knives and axes. either this distinction--iron for tools and implements; bronze for armour, swords, and spears--prevailed throughout the period of the homeric poets or poet; or the poets invented such a stage of culture; or poets, some centuries later, deliberately kept bronze for weapons only, while introducing iron for implements. in that case they were showing archaeological conscientiousness in following the presumed earlier poets of the bronze age, the age of the mycenaean graves. now early poets are never studious archaeologists. examining the [blank space] certainly based on old lays and legends which survive in the edda, we find that the poets of the _nibelungenlied_ introduce chivalrous and christian manners. they do not archaeologise. the poets of the french _chansons de geste_ (eleventh to thirteenth centuries) bring their own weapons, and even armorial bearings, into the 'remote age of charlemagne, which they know from legends and _cantilènes_. again, the later _remanieurs_ of the earliest _chansons de geste_ modernise the details of these poems. but, _per impossibile_, and for the sake of argument, suppose that the later interpolators and continuators of the homeric lays were antiquarian precisians, or, on the other hand, "deliberately attempted to reproduce from their inner consciousness an archaic state of civilisation." suppose that, though they lived in an age of iron weapons, they knew, as hesiod knew, that the old heroes "had warlike gear of bronze, and ploughed with bronze, and there was no black iron." [footnote: hesiod, _works and days_, pp. 250, 251.] in that case, why did the later interpolating poets introduce iron as the special material of tools and implements, knives and axes, in an age when they knew that there was no iron? savants such as, by this theory, the later poets of the full-blown age of iron were, they must have known that the knives and axes of the old heroes were made of bronze. in old votive offerings in temples and in any mycenaean graves which might be opened, the learned poets of 800-600 b.c. saw with their eyes knives and axes of bronze. [footnote: _early age of greece_, i. 413-416.] the knife of agamemnon ([greek: machaira]), which hangs from his girdle, beside his sword, [footnote: _iliad_, iii. 271; xix. 252.] corresponds to the knives found in grave iv. at mycenae; the handles of these dirks have a ring for suspension. [footnote: tsountas and manatt, p. 204.] but these knives, in mycenaean graves, are of bronze, and of bronze are the axes in the mycenaean deposits and the dagger of enkomi. [footnote: _ibid._, pp. 145, 207, 208, 256. _evans, journal of the anthropological institute_, vol xxx. p, 214.] why, then, did the late poetic interpolators, who knew that the spears and swords of the old warriors were of bronze, and who describe them as of bronze, not know that their knives and axes were also of bronze? why did they describe the old knives and axes as of iron, while hesiod knew, and could have told them--did tell them, in fact--that they were of bronze? clearly the theory that homeric poets were archaeological precisians is impossible. they describe arms as of bronze, tools usually as of iron, because they see them to be such in practice. the poems, in fact, depict a very extraordinary condition of affairs, such as no poets could invent and adhere to with uniformity. we are accustomed in archaeology to seeing the bronze sword pass by a gradual transition into the iron sword; but, in homer, people with abundance of iron never, in any one specified case, use iron sword blades or spears. the greatest chiefs, men said to be rich in gold and iron, always use swords and spears of _bronze_ in _iliad_ and _odyssey_. the usual process of transition from bronze to iron swords, in a prehistoric european age, is traced by mr. ridgeway at hallstatt, "in the heart of the austrian alps," where a thousand old graves have been explored. the swords pass from bronze to iron with bronze hilts, and, finally, are wholly of iron. weapons of bronze are fitted with iron edges. axes of iron were much more common than axes of bronze. [footnote: _early age of greece_, i. 413-416.] the axes were fashioned in the old shapes of the age of bronze, were not of the _bipennis_ mycenaean model--the double axe--nor of the shape of the letter d, very thick, with two round apertures in the blade, like the bronze axe of vaphio. [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. 176.] probably the axes through which odysseus shot an arrow were of this kind, as mr. monro, and, much earlier, mr. butcher and i have argued. [footnote: _ibid_. (1901), vol. ii. book xix. line 572. note. butcher and lang, odyssey, appendix (1891).] at hallstatt there was the _normal_ evolution from bronze swords and axes to iron swords and axes. why, then, had homer's men in his time not made this step, seeing that they were familiar with the use of iron? why do they use bronze for swords and spears, iron for tools? the obvious answer is that they could temper bronze for military purposes much better than they could temper iron. now mr. ridgeway quotes polybius (ii. 30; ii. 33) for the truly execrable quality of the iron of the celtic invaders of italy as late as 225 b.c. their swords were as bad as, or worse than, british bayonets; they _always_ "doubled up." "their long iron swords were easily bent, and could only give one downward stroke with any effect; but after this the edges got so turned and the blades so bent that, unless they had time to straighten them with the foot against the ground, they could not deliver a second blow." [footnote: _early age of greece_, vol. i. 408.] if the heroes in homer's time possessed iron as badly tempered as that of the celts of 225 b.c., they had every reason to prefer, as they did, excellent bronze for all their military weapons, while reserving iron for pacific purposes. a woodcutter's axe might have any amount of weight and thickness of iron behind the edge; not so a sword blade or a spear point. [footnote: monsieur salomon reinach suggests to me that the story of polybius may be a myth. swords and spear-heads in graves are often found doubled up; possibly they are thus made dead, like the owner, and their spirits are thus set free to be of use to his spirit. finding doubled up iron swords in celtic graves, the romans, m. beinach suggests, may have explained their useless condition by the theory that they doubled up in battle, leaving their owners easy victims, and this myth was accepted as fact by polybius. but he was not addicted to myth, nor very remote from the events which he chronicles. again, though bronze grave-weapons in our museum are often doubled up, the myth is not told of the warriors of the age of bronze. we later give examples of the doubling up, in battle, of scandinavian iron swords as late as 1000 a.d.] in the _iliad_ we hear of swords breaking at the hilt in dealing a stroke at shield or helmet, a thing most incident to bronze swords, especially of the early type, with a thin bronze tang inserted in a hilt of wood, ivory, or amber, or with a slight shelf of the bronze hilt riveted with three nails on to the bronze blade. lycaon struck peneleos on the socket of his helmet crest, "and his sword brake at the hilt." [footnote: _iliad_, xvi. 339.] the sword of menelaus broke into three or four pieces when he smote the helmet ridge of paris. [footnote: _iliad_, iii. 349, 380.] iron of the celtic sort described by polybius would have bent, not broken. there is no doubt on that head: if polybius is not romancing, the celtic sword of 225 b.c. doubled up at every stroke, like a piece of hoop iron. but mr. leaf tells us that, "by primitive modes of smelting," iron is made "hard and brittle, like cast iron." if so, it would be even less trustworthy for a sword than bronze. [footnote: _iliad_ (1900), book vi, line 48, note.] perhaps the celts of 225 b.c. did not smelt iron by primitive methods, but discovered some process for making it not hard and brittle, but flabby. the swords of the mycenaean graves, we know, were all of bronze, and, in three intaglios on rings from the graves, the point, not the edge, is used, [footnote: tsountas and manatt, p. 199.] once against a lion, once over the rim of a shield which covers the whole body of an enemy, and once at too close quarters to permit the use of the edge. it does not follow from these three cases (as critics argue) that no bronze sword could be used for a swashing blow, and there are just half as many thrusts as strokes with the bronze sword in the _iliad_. [footnote: twenty-four cuts to eleven lunges, in the _iliad_.] as the poet constantly dwells on the "long edge" of the _bronze_ swords and makes heroes use both point and edge, how can we argue that homeric swords were of iron and ill fitted to give point? the highlanders at clifton (1746) were obliged, contrary to their common practice, to use the point against cumberland's dragoons. they, like the achaeans, had heavy cut and thrust swords, but theirs were of steel. if the achaeans had thoroughly excellent bronze, and had iron as bad as that of the celts a thousand years later, their preference for bronze over iron for weapons is explained. in homer the fighters do not very often come to sword strokes; they fight mainly with the spear, except in pursuit, now and then. but when they do strike, they cleave heads and cut off arms. they could not do this with bronze rapiers, such as those with which men give point over the rim of the shield on two mycenaean gems. but mr. myres writes, "from the shaft graves (of mycenae) onwards there are two types of swords in the mycenaean world--one an exaggerated dagger riveted into the front end of the hilt, the other with a flat flanged tang running the whole length of the hilt, and covered on either face by ornamental grip plates riveted on. this sword, though still of bronze, can deal a very effective cut; and, as the mycenaeans had no armour for body or head," (?) "the danger of breaking or bending the sword on a cuirass or helmet did not arise." [footnote: _classical review_, xvi. 72.] the danger did exist in homer's time, as we have seen. but a bronze sword, published by tsountas and manatt (_mycenaean age_, p. 199, fig. 88), is emphatically meant to give both point and edge, having a solid handle--a continuation of the blade--and a very broad blade, coming to a very fine point. even in grave v. at mycenae, we have a sword blade so massive at the top that it was certainly capable of a swashing blow. [footnote: schuchardt, _schliemann's excavations_, p. _265, fig._ 269.] the sword of the charioteer on the _stêlê_ of grave v. is equally good for cut and thrust. a pleasanter cut and thrust bronze sword than the one found at ialysus no gentleman could wish to handle. [footnote: furtwängler und loeschke, _myk. va._ taf. d.] homer, in any case, says that his heroes used bronze swords, well adapted to strike. if his age had really good bronze, and iron as bad as that of the celts of polybius, a thousand years later, their preference of bronze over iron for weapons needs no explanation. if their iron was not so bad as that of the celts, their military conservatism might retain bronze for weapons, while in civil life they often used iron for implements. the uniform evidence of the homeric poems can only be explained on the supposition that men had plenty of iron; but, while they used it for implements, did not yet, with a natural conservatism, trust life and victory to iron spears and swords. unluckily, we cannot test the temper of the earliest known iron swords found in greece, for rust hath consumed them, and i know not that the temper of the mycenaean bronze swords has been tested against helmets of bronze. i can thus give no evidence from experiment. there is just one line in homer which disregards the distinction--iron for implements, bronze for weapons; it is in _odyssey_, xvi. 294; xix. 13. telemachus is told to remove the warlike harness of odysseus from the hall, lest the wooers use it in the coming fray. he is to explain the removal by saying that it has been done, "lest you fall to strife in your cups, and harm each other, and shame the feast, and _this_ wooing; _for iron of himself draweth a man to him_." the proverb is manifestly of an age when iron was almost universally used for weapons, and thus was, as in thucydides, synonymous with all warlike gear; but throughout the poems no single article of warlike gear is of iron except one eccentric mace and one arrow-head of primitive type. the line in the odyssey must therefore be a very late addition; it may be removed without injuring the sense of the passage in which it occurs. [footnote: this fact, in itself, is of course no proof of interpolation. _cf._ helbig, _op_. cit., p. 331. he thinks the line very late.] if, on the other hand, the line be as old as the oldest parts of the poem, the author for once forgets his usual antiquarian precision. we are thus led to the conclusion that either there was in early greece an age when weapons were all of bronze while implements were often of iron, or that the poet, or crowd of poets, invented that state of things. now early poets never invent in this way; singing to an audience of warriors, critical on such a point, they speak of what the warriors know to be actual, except when, in a recognised form of decorative exaggeration, they introduce "masts of the beaten gold and sails of taffetie." our theory is, then, that in the age when the homeric poems were composed, iron, though well known, was on its probation. men of the sword preferred bronze for all their military purposes, just as fifteenth-century soldiers found the long-bow and cross-bow much more effective than guns, or as the duke of wellington forbade the arming of all our men with rifles in place of muskets ... for reasons not devoid of plausibility. sir john evans supposes that, in the seventh century, the carian and ionian invaders of egypt were still using offensive arms of bronze, not of iron. [footnote: ancient _bronze implements_, p. 8 (1881), citing herodotus, ii. c. 112. sir john is not sure that achaean spear-heads were not of copper, for they twice double up against a shield. _iliad_, iii. 348; vii. 259; evans, p. 13.] sir john remarks that "for a considerable time after the homeric period, bronze remained in use for offensive weapons," especially for "spears, lances, and arrows." hesiod, quite unlike his contemporaries, the "later" poets of iliad and _odyssey_, gives to heracles an iron helmet and sword. [footnote: _scutum herculis_, pp. 122-138.] hesiod knew better, but was not a consistent archaiser. sir john thinks that as early as 500 or even 600 b.c. iron and steel were in common use for weapons in greece, but not yet had they altogether superseded bronze battle-axes and spears. [footnote: evans, p. 18.] by sir john's showing, iron for offensive weapons superseded bronze very slowly indeed in greece; and, if my argument be correct, it had not done so when the homeric poems were composed. iron merely served for utensils, and the poems reflect that stage of transition which no poet could dream of inventing. these pages had been written before my attention was directed to m. bérard's book, _les pheniciens et l'odyssée_ (paris, 1902). m. bérard has anticipated and rather outrun my ideas. "i might almost say," he remarks, "that iron is the popular metal, native and rustic... the shepherd and ploughman can extract and work it without going to the town." the chief's smith could work iron, if he had iron to work, and this iron achilles gave as a prize. "with rustic methods of working it iron is always impure; it has 'straws' in it, and is brittle. it may be the metal for peace and for implements. in our fields we see the reaper sit down and repair his sickle. in war is needed a metal less hard, perhaps, but more tough and not so easily broken. you cannot sit down in the field of battle, as in a field of barley, to beat your sword straight...." [footnote: bérard, i. 435.] so the celts found, if we believe polybius. on the other hand, iron swords did supersede bronze swords in the long run. apparently they had not done so in the age of the poet, but iron had certainly ceased to be "a precious metal"; knives and woodcutters' axes are never made of a metal that is precious and rare. i am thus led, on a general view, to suppose that the poems took shape when iron was very well known, but was not yet, as in the "dipylon" period in crete, commonly used by sword-smiths. the ideas here stated are not unlike those of paul cauer. [footnote: _grundfrager des homerkritik,_ pp. 183-187. leipsic, 1895.] i do not, however, find the mentions of iron useful as a test of "early" and "late" lays, which it is his theory that they are. thus he says:-(1) iron is often mentioned as part of a man's personal property, while we are not told how he means to use it. it is named with bronze, gold, and girls. the poet has no definite picture before his eyes; he is vague about iron. but, we reply, his picture of iron in these passages is neither more nor less definite than his mental picture of the other commodities. he calls iron "hard to smithy," "grey," "dark-hued"; he knows, in fact, all about it. he does not tell us what the owner is going to do with the gold and the bronze and the girls, any more than he tells us what is to be done with the iron. such information was rather in the nature of a luxury than a necessity. every hearer knew the uses of all four commodities. this does not seem to have occurred to cauer. (2) iron is spoken of as an emblem of hard things, as, to take a modern example, in mr. swinburne's "armed and iron maidenhood "--said of atalanta. hearts are "iron," strength is "iron," flesh is not "iron," an "iron" noise goes up to the heaven of bronze. it may not follow, cauer thinks, from these phrases that iron was used in any way. men are supposed to marvel at its strange properties; it was "new and rare." i see no ground for this inference. (3) we have the "iron gates" of tartarus, and the "iron bonds" in which odysseus was possibly lying; it does not follow that chains or gates were made of iron any more than that gates were of chrysoprase in the days of st. john. (4) next, we have mention of implements, not weapons, of iron--a remarkable trait of culture. greek ploughs and axes were made of iron before spears and swords were of iron. (5) we have mention of iron weapons, namely, the unique iron mace of areithous and the solitary iron arrow-head of pandarus, and what cauer calls the iron swords (more probably knives) of achilles and others. it is objected to the "iron" of achilles that antilochus fears he will cut his throat with it on hearing of the death of patroclus, while there is no other mention of suicide in the _iliad_. it does not follow that suicide was unheard of; indeed, achilles may be thinking of suicide presently, in xiii. 98, when he says to his mother: "let me die at once, since it was not my lot to succour my comrade." (6) we have the iron-making spoken of in book ix. 393 of the _odyssey_. it does not appear to us that the use of iron as an epithet bespeaks an age when iron was a mysterious thing, known mainly by reputation, "a costly possession." the epithets "iron strength," and so on, may as readily be used in our own age or any other. if iron were at first a "precious" metal, it is odd that homeric men first used it, as cauer sees that they did, to make points to ploughshares and "tools of agriculture and handiwork." "then people took to working iron for weapons." just so, but we cannot divide the _iliad_ into earlier and later portions in proportion to the various mentions of iron in various books. these statistics are of no value for separatist purposes. it is impossible to believe that men when they spoke of "iron strength," "iron hearts," "grey iron," "iron hard to smithy," did so because iron was, first, an almost unknown legendary mineral, next, "a precious metal," then the metal of drudgery, and finally the metal of weapons. the real point of interest is, as cauer sees, that domestic preceded military uses of iron among the achaeans. he seems, however, to think that the confinement of the use of bronze to weapons is a matter of traditional style. [footnote: "nur die sprache der dichter hielt an dem gebrauch der bronze fest, die in den jahrhunderten, während deren der epische stil erwachsen war, allein geherrscht hatte."] but, in the early days of the waxing epics, tools as well as weapons were, as in homer they occasionally are, of bronze. why, then, do the supposed late continuators represent tools, not weapons, as of iron? why do they not cleave to the traditional term--bronze--in the case of tools, as the same men do in the case of weapons? helbig offers an apparently untenable explanation of this fact. he has proposed an interpretation of the uses of bronze and iron in the poems entirely different from that which i offer. [footnote: _sur la question mycénienne_. 1896.] unfortunately, one can scarcely criticise his theory without entering again into the whole question of the construction of the epics. he thinks that the origin of the poems dates from "the mycenaean period," and that the later continuators of the poems retained the traditions of that remote age. thus they thrice call mycenae "golden," though, in the changed economic conditions of their own period, mycenae could no longer be "golden"; and i presume that, if possible, the city would have issued a papyrus currency without a metallic basis. however this may be, "in the description of customs the epic poets did their best to avoid everything modern." here we have again that unprecedented phenomenon--early poets who are archaeologically precise. we have first to suppose that the kernel of the _iliad_ originated in the mycenaean age, the age of bronze. we are next to believe that this kernel was expanded into the actual epic in later and changed times, but that the later poets adhered in their descriptions to the mycenaean standard, avoiding "everything modern." that poets of an uncritical period, when treating of the themes of ancient legend or song, carefully avoid everything modern is an opinion not warranted by the usage of the authors of the _chansons de geste_, of _beowulf_, and of the _nibelungenlied_. these poets, we must repeat, invariably introduce in their chants concerning ancient days the customs, costume, armour, religion, and weapons of their own time. dr. helbig supposes that the late greek poets, however, who added to the _iliad_, carefully avoided doing what other poets of uncritical ages have always done. [footnote: _la question mycénienne_, p. 50.] this is his position in his text (p. 50). in his note 1 to page 50, however, he occupies the precisely contrary position. "the epic poems were chanted, as a rule, in the houses of more or less warlike chiefs. it is, then, _à priori_ probable that the later poets took into account the _contemporary_ military state of things. their audience would have been much perturbed (_bien chequés_) if they had heard the poet mention nothing but arms and forms of attack and defence to which they were unaccustomed." if so, when iron weapons came in the poets would substitute iron for bronze, in lays new and old, but they never do. however, this is helbig's opinion in his note. but in his text he says that the poets, carefully avoiding the contemporary, "the modern," make the heroes fight, not on horseback, but from chariots. their listeners, according to his note, must have been _bien chequés_, for there came a time when _they_ were not accustomed to war chariots. thus the poets who, in dr. helbig's text, "avoid as far as possible all that is modern," in his note, on the same page, "take account of the contemporary state of things," and are as modern as possible where weapons _are_ concerned. their audience would be sadly put out (_bien chequés_) "if they heard talk only of arms ... to which they were unaccustomed"; talk of large suspended shields, of uncorsleted heroes, and of bronze weapons. they had to endure it, whether they liked it or not, _teste_ reichel. dr. helbig seems to speak correctly in his note; in his text his contradictory opinion appears to be wrong. experience teaches us that the poets of an uncritical age--shakespeare, for example--introduce the weapons of their own period into works dealing with remote ages. hamlet uses the elizabethan rapier. in his argument on bronze and iron, unluckily, dr. helbig deserts the judicious opinions of his note for the opposite theory of his text. his late poets, in the age of iron, always say that the weapons of the heroes are made of bronze. [footnote: _op. laud_., p. 51.] they thus, "as far as possible avoid what is modern." but, of course, warriors of the age of iron, when they heard the poet talk only of weapons of bronze, "_aurient été bien choqués_" (as dr. helbig truly says in his note), on hearing of nothing but "_armes auxquels ils n'étaient pas habitués,_"--arms always of bronze. though dr. helbig in his text is of the opposite opinion, i must agree entirely with the view which he states so clearly in his note. it follows that if a poet speaks invariably of weapons of bronze, he is living in an age when weapons are made of no other material. in his text, however, dr. helbig maintains that the poets of later ages "as far as possible avoid everything modern," and, therefore, mention none but bronze weapons. but, as he has pointed out, they do mention iron tools and implements. why do they desert the traditional bronze? because "it occasionally happened that a poet, when thinking of an entirely new subject, wholly emancipated himself from traditional forms," [footnote: _op. laud_., pp. 51, 52] the examples given in proof are the offer by achilles of a lump of iron as the prize for archery--the iron, as we saw, being destined for the manufacture of pastoral and agricultural implements, in which dr. helbig includes the lances of shepherds and ploughmen, though the poet never says that they were of iron. [footnote: _iliad_, xxiii. 826, 835; odyssey, xiv. 531; xiii. 225.] there are also the axes through which odysseus shoots his arrow. [footnote: _odyssey_, xix. 587; xxi. 3, x, 97, 114, 127, 138; xxiv. 168, 177; cf. xxi. 61.] "the poet here treated an entirely new subject, in the development of which he had perfect liberty." so he speaks freely of iron. "but," we exclaim, "tools and implements, axes and knives, are not a perfectly new subject!" they were extremely familiar to the age of bronze, the mycenaean age. examples of bronze tools, arrow-heads, and implements are discovered in excavations on mycenaean sites. there was nothing new about bronze tools and implements. men had bronze tips to their ploughshares, bronze knives, bronze axes, bronze arrow-heads before they used iron. perhaps we are to understand that feats of archery, non-military contests in bowmanship, are _un sujet à fait nouveau_: a theme so very modern that a poet, in singing of it, could let himself go, and dare to speak of iron implements. but where was the novelty? all peoples who use the bow in war practise archery in time of peace. the poet, moreover, speaks of bronze tools, axes and knives, in other parts of the _iliad_; neither tools nor bronze tools constitute _un sujet tout à fait nouveau_. there was nothing new in shooting with a bow and nothing new in the existence of axes. bows and axes were as familiar to the age of stone and to the age of bronze as to the age of iron. dr. helbig's explanation, therefore, explains nothing, and, unless a better explanation is offered, we return to the theory, rejected by dr. helbig, that implements and tools were often, not always, of iron, while weapons were of bronze in the age of the poet. dr. helbig rejects this opinion. he writes: "we cannot in any way admit that, at a period when the socks of the plough, the lance points of shepherds" (which the poet never describes as of iron), "and axe-heads were of iron, warriors still used weapons of bronze." [footnote: op. _laud._, p. 53.] but it is logically possible to admit that this was the real state of affairs, while it is logically impossible to admit that bows and tools were "new subjects"; and that late poets, when they sang of military gear, "_tenaient compte de l'armement contemporain,_" carefully avoiding the peril of bewildering their hearers by speaking of antiquated arms, and, at the same time, spoke of nothing but antiquated arms--weapons of bronze--and of war chariots, to fighting men who did not use war chariots and did use weapons of iron. these logical contradictions beset all arguments in which it is maintained that "the late poets" are anxious archaisers, and at the same time are eagerly introducing the armour and equipment of their own age. the critics are in the same quandary as to iron and bronze as traps them in the case of large shields, small bucklers, greaves, and corslets. they are obliged to assign contradictory attitudes to their "late poets." it does not seem possible to admit that a poet, who often describes axes as of iron in various passages, does so in his account of a peaceful contest in bowmanship, because contests in bowmanship are _un sujet tout à fait nouveau;_ and so he feels at liberty to describe axes as of iron, while he adheres to bronze as the metal for weapons. he, or one of the odyssean poets, had already asserted (odyssey, ix. 391) that iron _was_ the metal for adzes and axes. dr. helbig's argument [footnote: _la question mycénienne_, p. 54.] does not explain the facts. the bow of eurytus and the uses to which odysseus is to put it have been in the poet's mind all through the conduct of his plot, and there is nothing to suggest that the exploit of bowmanship is a very new lay, tacked on to the odyssey. after writing this chapter, i observed that my opinion had been anticipated by s. h. naber. [footnote: _quaestiones homericae_, p. 60. amsterdam. van der post, 1897.] "quod herodoti diserto testimonio novimus, homeri restate ferruminatio nondum inventa erat necdum bene noverant mortales, uti opinor, _acuere_ ferrum. hinc pauperes homines ubi possunt, ferro utuntur; sed in plerisque rebus turn domi turn militiae imprimis coguntur uti aere...." the theory of mr. ridgeway as to the relative uses of iron and bronze is not, by myself, very easily to be understood. "the homeric warrior ... has regularly, as we have seen, spear and sword of iron." [footnote: _early age of greece_, vol. i. p. 301.] as no spear or sword of iron is ever mentioned in the _iliad_ or odyssey, as both weapons are always of bronze when the metal is specified, i have not "seen" that they are "regularly," or ever, of iron. in proof, mr. ridgeway cites the axes and knives already mentioned--which are not spears or swords, and are sometimes of bronze. he also quotes the line in the odyssey, "iron of itself doth attract a man." but if this line is genuine and original, it does not apply to the state of things in the _iliad_, while it contradicts the whole odyssey, in which swords and spears are _always_ of bronze when their metal is mentioned. if the line reveals the true state of things, then throughout the odyssey, if not throughout the _iliad_, the poets when they invariably speak of bronze swords and spears invariably say what they do not mean. if they do this, how are we to know when they mean what they say, and of what value can their evidence on points of culture be reckoned? they may always be retaining traditional terms as to usages and customs in an age when these are obsolete. if the achaeans were, as in mr. ridgeway's theory, a northern people--"celts"--who conquered with iron weapons a pelasgian bronze-using mycenaean people, it is not credible to me that achaean or pelasgian poets habitually used the traditional pelasgian term for the metal of weapons, namely, bronze, in songs chanted before victors who had won their triumph with iron. the traditional phrase of a conquered bronze-using race could not thus survive and flourish in the poetry of an outlandish iron-using race of conquerors. mr. ridgeway cites the odyssey, wherein we are told that "euryalus, the phaeacian, presented to odysseus a bronze sword, though, as we have seen" (mr. ridgeway has seen), "the usual material for all such weapons is iron. but the phoeacians both belonged to the older race and lived in a remote island, and therefore swords of bronze may well have continued in use in such out-of-the-world places long after iron swords were in use everywhere else in greece. the man who could not afford iron had to be satisfied with bronze." [footnote: _early age of greece_, p. 305.] here the poet is allowed to mean what he says. the phaeacian sword is really of bronze, with silver studs, probably on the hilt (odyssey, viii. 401-407), which was of ivory. the "out-of-the-world" islanders could afford ivory, not iron. but when the same poet tells us that the sword which odysseus brought from troy was "a great silver-studded bronze sword" (odyssey, x. 261, 262), then mr. ridgeway does not allow the poet to mean what he says. the poet is now using an epic formula older than the age of iron swords. that mr. ridgeway adopts helbig's theory--the poet says "bronze," by a survival of the diction of the bronze age, when he means iron--i infer from the following passage: "_chalkos_ is the name for the older metal, of which cutting weapons were made, and it thus lingered in many phrases of the epic dialect; 'to smite with the _chalkos_' was equivalent to our phrase 'to smite with the steel.'" [footnote: _early age of greece_, i. 295.] but we certainly do smite with the steel, while the question is, "_did_ homer's men smite with the iron?" homer says not; he does not merely use "an epic phrase" "to smite with the _chalkos_," but he carefully describes swords, spears, and usually arrow-heads as being of bronze (_chalkos_), while axes, adzes, and knives are frequently described by him as of iron. mr. ridgeway has an illustrative argument with some one, who says: "the dress and weapons of the saxons given in the lay of _beowulf_ fitted exactly the bronze weapons in england, for they had shields, and spears, and battle-axes, and swords." if you pointed out to him that the saxon poem spoke of these weapons as made of iron, he would say, "i admit that it is a difficulty, but the resemblances are so many that the discrepancies may be jettisoned." [footnote: _ridgeway,_ i. 83, 84.] now, if the supposed controversialist were a homeric critic, he would not admit any difficulty. he would say, "yes; in _beowulf_ the weapons are said to be of iron, but that is the work of the christian _remanieur,_ or _bearbeiter,_ who introduced all the christian morality into the old heathen lay, and who also, not to puzzle his iron-using audience, changed the bronze into iron weapons." we may prove anything if we argue, now that the poets retain the tradition of obsolete things, now that they modernise as much as they please. into this method of reasoning, after duly considering it, i am unable to come with enthusiasm, being wedded to the belief that the poets say what they mean. were it otherwise, did they not mean what they say, their evidence would be of no value; they might be dealing throughout in terms for things which were unrepresented in their own age. to prove this possible, it would be necessary to adduce convincing and sufficient examples of early national poets who habitually use the terminology of an age long prior to their own in descriptions of objects, customs, and usages. meanwhile, it is obvious that my whole argument has no archaeological support. we may find "mycenaean" corslets and greaves, but they are not in cremation burials. no homeric cairn with homeric contents has ever been discovered; and if we did find examples of homeric cairns, it appears, from the poems, that they would very seldom contain the arms of the dead. nowhere, again, do we find graves containing bronze swords and iron axes and adzes. i know nothing nearer in discoveries to my supposed age of bronze weapons and iron tools than a grave of the early iron and geometrical ornament age of crete--a _tholos_ tomb, with a bronze spear-head and a set of iron tools, among others a double axe and a pick of iron. but these were in company with iron swords? to myself the crowning mystery is, what has become of the homeric tumuli with their contents? one can but say that only within the last thirty years have we found, or, finding, have recognised mycenaean burial records. as to the badness of the iron of the north for military purposes, and the probable badness of all early iron weapons, we have testimony two thousand years later than homer and some twelve hundred years later than polybius. in the eyrbyggja saga (morris and maguússon, chap, xxiv.) we read that steinthor "was girt with a sword that was cunningly wrought; the hilts were white with silver, and the grip wrapped round with the same, but the strings thereof were gilded." this was a splendid sword, described with the homeric delight in such things; but the battle-cry arises, and then "the fair-wrought sword bit not when it smote armour, and steinthor must _straighten it under_ his _foot._" messrs. morris and maguússon add in a note: "this is a very common experience in scandinavian weapons, and for the first time heard of at the battle of aquae sextiae between marius and the teutons." [footnote: the reference is erroneous.] "in the north weapon-smiths who knew how to forge tempered or steel-laminated weapons were, if not unknown, at least very rare." when such skill was unknown or rare in homer's time, nothing was more natural than that bronze should hold its own, as the metal for swords and spears, after iron was commonly used for axes and ploughshares. chapter x the homeric house if the homeric poems be, as we maintain, the work of a peculiar age, the homeric house will also, in all likelihood, be peculiar. it will not be the hellenic house of classical times. manifestly the dwelling of a military-prince in the heroic age would be evolved to meet his needs, which were not the needs of later hellenic citizens. in time of peace the later greeks are weaponless men, not surrounded by and entertaining throngs of armed retainers, like the homeric chief. the women of later greece, moreover, are in the background of life, dwelling in the women's chambers, behind those of the men, in seclusion. the homeric women also, at least in the house of odysseus, have their separate chambers, which the men seem not to enter except on invitation, though the ladies freely honour by their presence the hall of the warriors. the circumstances, however, were peculiar--penelope being unprotected in the absence of her lord. the whole domestic situation in the homeric poems--the free equality of the women, the military conditions, the life of the chiefs and retainers--closely resembles, allowing for differences of climate, that of the rich landowners of early iceland as described in the sagas. there can be no doubt that the house of the icelandic chief was analogous to the house of the homeric prince. societies remarkably similar in mode of life were accommodated in dwellings similarly arranged. though the icelanders owned no over-lord, and, indeed, left their native scandinavia to escape the sway of harold fairhair, yet each wealthy and powerful chief lived in the manner of a homeric "king." his lands and thralls, horses and cattle, occupied his attention when he did not chance to be on viking adventure--"bearing bane to alien men." he always carried sword and spear, and often had occasion to use them. he entertained many guests, and needed a large hall and ample sleeping accommodation for strangers and servants. his women were as free and as much respected as the ladies in homer; and for a husband to slap a wife was to run the risk of her deadly feud. thus, far away in the frosts of the north, the life of the chief was like that of the homeric prince, and their houses were alike. it is our intention to use this parallel in the discussion of the homeric house. all icelandic chiefs' houses in the tenth and eleventh centuries were not precisely uniform in structure and accommodation, and saga writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, living more comfortably than their forefathers, sometimes confuse matters by introducing the arrangements of their own into the tale of past times. but, in any case, one icelandic house of the tenth or eleventh century might differ from another in certain details. it is not safe, therefore, to argue that difference of detail in homer's accounts of various houses means that the varying descriptions were composed in different ages. in the _odyssey_ the plot demands that the poet must enter into domestic details much more freely than he ever has occasion to do in the iliad. he may mention upper chambers freely, for example; it will not follow that in the _iliad_ upper chambers do not exist because they are only mentioned twice in that epic. it is even more important to note that in the house of odysseus we have an unparalleled domestic situation. the lady of the house is beset by more than a hundred wooers--"sorning" on her, in the old scots legal phrase--making it impossible for her to inhabit her own hall, and desirable to keep the women as much as possible apart from the men. thus the homeric house of which we know most, that of odysseus, is a house in a most abnormal condition. for the sake of brevity we omit the old theory that the homeric house was practically that of historical greece, with the men's hall approached by a door from the courtyard; while a door at the upper end of the men's hall yields direct access to the quarters where the women dwelt apart, at the rear of the men's hall. that opinion has not survived the essay by mr. j. l. myres on the "plan of the homeric house." [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, vol. xx, 128-150.] quite apart from arguments that rest on the ground plans of palaces at mycenae and tiryns, mr. myres has proved, by an exact reading of the poet's words, that the descriptions in the _odyssey_ cannot be made intelligible on the theory that the poet has in his mind a house of the hellenic pattern. but in his essay he hardly touches on any homeric house except that of odysseus, in which the circumstances were unusual. a later critic, ferdinand noack, has demonstrated that we must take other homeric houses into consideration. [footnote: _homerische paläste_. teubner. leipzig, 1903.] the prae-mycenaean house is, according to mr. myres, on the whole of the same plan as the hellenic house of historic days; between these comes the mycenaean and homeric house; "so that the mycenaean house stands out _as an intrusive phenomenon_, of comparatively late arrival _and short of duration_..." [footnote: myres, _journal_ of _hellenic_ studies, vol. xx. p. 149.] noack goes further; he draws a line between the mycenaean houses on one hand and the houses described by homer on the other; while he thinks that the "_late_ homeric house," that of the closing books of the odyssey, is widely sundered from the homeric house of the _iliad_ and from the houses of menelaus and alcinous in earlier books of the _odyssey._ [footnote: noack, p. 73.] in this case the iliadic and earlier odyssean houses are those of a single definite age, neither mycenaean of the prime, nor hellenic--a fact which entirely suits our argument. but it is not so certain, that the house of odysseus is severed from the other homeric houses by the later addition of an upper storey, as noack supposes, and of women's quarters, and of separate sleeping chambers for the heads of the family. the _iliad,_ save in two passages, and earlier books of the _odyssey_ may not mention upper storeys because they have no occasion, or only rare occasion, to do so; and some houses may have had upper sleeping chambers while others of the same period had not, as we shall prove from the icelandic parallel. mr. myres's idea of the homeric house, or, at least, of the house of odysseus, is that the women had a _meguron,_ or common hall, apart from that of the men, with other chambers. these did not lie to the direct rear of the men's hall, nor were they entered by a door that opened in the back wall of the men's hall. penelope has a chamber, in which she sleeps and does woman's work, upstairs; her connubial chamber, unoccupied during her lord's absence, is certainly on the ground floor. the women's rooms are severed from the men's hall by a courtyard; in the courtyard are chambers. telemachus has his [greek: thalamos], or chamber, in the men's courtyard. all this appears plain from the poet's words; and mr. myres corroborates, by the ground plans of the palaces of tiryns and mycenae, a point on which mr. monro had doubts, as regards tiryns, while he accepted it for mycenae. [footnote: monro, odyssey, ii. 497; _journal of hellenic studies_, xx. 136.] noack [footnote: noack, p. 39.] does not, however, agree. there appears to be no doubt that in the centre of the great halls of tiryns and of mycenae, as of the houses in homer, was the hearth, with two tall pillars on each side, supporting a _louvre_ higher than the rest of the roof, and permitting some, at least, of the smoke of the fire to escape. beside the fire were the seats of the master and mistress of the house, of the minstrel, and of honoured guests. the place of honour was not on a dais at the inmost end of the hall, like the high table in college halls. mr. myres holds that in the homeric house the [greek: prodomos], or "forehouse," was a chamber, and was not identical with the [greek: aethousa], or portico, though he admits that the two words "are used indifferently to describe the sleeping place of a guest." [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, xx. 144, 155.] this was the case at tiryns; and in the house of the father of phoenix, in the _iliad_, the _prodomos_, or forehouse, and the _aethousa_, or portico, are certainly separate things (iliad, ix. 473). noack does not accept the tiryns evidence for the homeric house. on mr. myres's showing, the women in the house of odysseus had distinct and separate quarters into which no man goes uninvited. odysseus when at home has, with his wife, a separate bedroom; and in his absence penelope sleeps upstairs, where there are several chambers for various purposes. granting that all this is so, how do the pictures of the house given in the final part of the _odyssey_ compare with those in the [blank space] and with the accounts of the dwellings of menelaus and alcinous in the odyssey? noack argues that the house of odysseus is unlike the other homeric houses, because in these, he reasons, the women have no separate quarters, and the lord and lady of the house sleep in the great hall, and have no other bedroom, while there are no upper chambers in the houses of the _iliad_, except in two passages dismissed as "late." if all this be so, then the homeric period, as regards houses and domestic life, belongs to an age apart, not truly mycenaean, and still less later hellenic. it must be remembered that noack regards the odyssey as a composite and in parts very late mosaic (a view on which i have said what i think in _homer and the epic_). according to this theory (kirchhoff is the exponent of a popular form thereof) the first book of the odyssey belongs to "the latest stratum," and is the "copy" of the general "worker-up," whether he was the editor employed by pisistratus or a laborious amateur. this theory is opposed by sittl, who makes his point by cutting out, as interpolations, whatever passages do not suit his ideas, and do suit kirchhoff's--this is the regular method of homeric criticism. the whole cruise of telemachus (book iv.) is also regarded as a late addition: on this point english scholars hitherto have been of the opposite opinion. [footnote: cf. monro, _odyssey_, vol. ii. 313-317.] the method of all parties is to regard repetitions of phrases as examples of borrowing, except, of course, in the case of the earliest poet from whom the others pilfer, and in other cases of prae-homeric surviving epic formulae. critics then dispute as to which recurrent passage is the earlier, deciding, of course, as may happen to suit their own general theory. in our opinion these passages are traditional formulae, as in our own old ballads and in the _chansons de geste_, and noack also takes this view every now and then. they may well be older, in many cases, than _iliad_ and _odyssey_; or the poet, having found his own formula, economically used it wherever similar circumstances occurred. such passages, so considered, are no tests of earlier composition in one place, of later composition in another. we now look into noack's theory of the homeric house. where do the lord and lady sleep? _not_, he says, as odysseus and penelope do (when odysseus is at home), in a separate chamber (_thalamos_) on the ground floor, nor, like gunnar and halgerda (njal's saga), in an upper chamber. they sleep _mucho domou_; that is, not in a separate recess in the _house_, but in a recess of the great hall or _megaron_. thus, in the hall of alcinous, the whole space runs from the threshold to the _muchos_, the innermost part (_odyssey_, vii. 87-96). in the hall of odysseus, the wooers retreat to the _muchos_, "the innermost part of the hall" (_odyssey_, xxii. 270). "the _muchos_, in homer, never denotes a separate chamber." [footnote: noack, p. 45. _cf_. monro, note to odyssey, xxii. 270.] in odyssey, xi. 373, alcinous says it is not yet time to sleep _ev megaro_, "in the hall." alcinous and arete, his wife, sleep "in the recess of the lofty _domos_," that is, in the recess of the _hall_, not of "the house" (odyssey, vii. 346). the same words are used of helen and menelaus (odyssey, iv. 304). but when menelaus goes forth next morning, he goes _ek thalamoio_, "out of his _chamber_" (_odyssey_, iv. 310). but this, says noack, is a mere borrowing of odyssey, ii 2-5, where the same words are used of telemachus, leaving his chamber, which undeniably was a separate chamber in the court: eurycleia lighted him thither at night (odyssey, i. 428). in odyssey, iv. 121, helen enters the hall "from her fragrant, lofty chamber," so she _had_ a chamber, not in the hall. but, says noack, this verse "is not original." the late poet of _odyssey_, iv. has cribbed it from the early poet who composed _odyssey, xix. 53._ in that passage penelope "comes from her chamber, like artemis or golden aphrodite." penelope _had_ a chamber--being "a lone lorn woman," who could not sleep in a hall where the wooers sat up late drinking--and the latest poet transfers this chamber to helen. but however late and larcenous he may have been, the poet of iv. 121 certainly did not crib the words of the poet of xix. 53, for he says, "helen came out of her _fragrant, high-roofed_ chamber." the _hall_ was not precisely "fragrant"! however, noack supposes that the late poet of book iv. let helen have a chamber apart, to lead up to the striking scene of her entry to the hall where her guests are sitting. may helen not even have a boudoir? in _odyssey_, iv. 263, helen speaks remorsefully of having abandoned her "chamber," and husband, and child, with paris; but the late poet says this, according to noack, because he finds that he is in for a chamber, so to speak, at all events, as a result of his having previously cribbed the word "chamber" from odyssey, xix. 53. otherwise, we presume helen would have said that she regretted having left "the recess of the lofty hall" where she really did sleep. [footnote: noack, pp. 47-48] the merit of this method of arguing may be left to the judgment of the reader, who will remark that wedded pairs are not described as leaving the hall when they go to bed; they sleep in "a recess of the lofty house," the innermost part. is this the same as the "recess of the _hall_" or is it an innermost part of the _house?_ who can be certain? the bridal chamber, built so cunningly, with the trunk of a tree for the support of the bed, by odysseus (odyssey, xxiii. 177-204), is, according to noack, an exception, a solitary freak of odysseus. but we may reply that the _thalamos_, the separate chamber, is no freak; the freak, by knowledge of which odysseus proves his identity, is the use of the tree in the construction of the bed. [blank space] was highly original. that separate chambers are needed for grown-up children, _because_ the parents sleep in the hall, is no strong argument. if the parents had a separate chamber, the young people, unless they slept in the hall, would still need their own. the girls, of course, could not sleep in the hall; and, in the absence of both penelope and odysseus from the hall, ever since telemachus was a baby, telemachus could have slept there. but it will be replied that the wooers did not beset the hall, and penelope did not retire to a separate chamber, till telemachus was a big boy of sixteen. noack argues that he had a separate chamber, though the hall was free, _tradition_. [footnote: noack, p. 49.] where does noack think that, in a normal homeric house, the girls of the family slept? _they_ could not sleep in the hall, and on the two occasions when the _iliad_ has to mention the chambers of the young ladies they are "upper chambers," as is natural. but as noack wants to prove the house of odysseus, with its upper chambers, to be a late peculiar house, he, of course, expunges the two mentions of girls' upper chambers in the _odyssey_. the process is simple and easy. we find (_iliad_, xvii. 36) that a son, wedding in his father's and mother's life-time, has a _thalamos_ built for him, and a _muchos_ in the _thalamos_, where he leaves his wife when he goes to war. this dwelling of grown-up married children, as in the case of the sons of priam, has a _thalamos_, or _doma_, and a courtyard--is a house, in fact (_iliad_, vi. 3 16). here we seem to distinguish the bed-chamber from the _doma_, which is the hall. noack objects that when odysseus fumigates his house, after slaying the wooers, he thus treats the _megaron_, _and_ the _doma_, _and_ the courtyard. therefore, noack argues, the _megaron_, or hall, is one thing; the _doma_ is another. mr. monro writes, "_doma_ usually means _megaron_," and he supposes a slip from another reading, _thalamon_ for _megaron_, which is not satisfactory. but if _doma_ here be not equivalent to _megaron_, what room can it possibly be? who was killed in another place? what place therefore needed purification except the hall and courtyard? no other places needed purifying; there is therefore clearly a defect in the lines which cannot be used in the argument. noack, in any case, maintains that paris has but one place to live in by day and to sleep in by night--his [greek: talamos]. there he sleeps, eats, and polishes his weapons and armour. there hector finds him looking to his gear; helen and the maids are all there (_iliad,_ vi. 321-323). is this quite certain? are helen and the maids in the [greek: talamos], where paris is polishing his corslet and looking to his bow, or in an adjacent room? if not in another room, why, when hector is in the room talking to paris, does helen ask him to "come in"? (_iliad,_ vi. 354). he is in, is there another room whence she can hear him? the minuteness of these inquiries is tedious! in _iliad,_ iii. 125, iris finds helen "in the hall" weaving. she summons her to come to priam on the gate. helen dresses in outdoor costume, and goes forth "from the chamber," [greek: talamos] (iii. 141-142). are hall and chamber the same room, or did not helen dress "in the chamber"? in the same book (iii. 174) she repents having left the [greek: talamos] of menelaus, not his hall: the passage is not a repetition in words of her speech in the odyssey. the gods, of course, are lodged like men. when we find that zeus has really a separate sleeping chamber, built by hephaestus, as odysseus has (_iliad,_ xiv. 166-167), we are told that this is a late interpolation. mr. leaf, who has a high opinion of this scene, "the beguiling of zeus," places it in the "second expansions"; he finds no "late odyssean" elements in the language. in _iliad,_ i. 608-611, zeus "departed to his couch"; he seems not to have stayed and slept in the hall. here a quaint problem occurs. of all late things in the odyssey the latest is said to be the song of demodocus about the loves of ares and aphrodite in the house of hephaestus. [footnote: odyssey, viii. 266-300.] we shall show that this opinion is far from certainly correct. hephaestus sets a snare round the bed in his [greek: talamos] and catches the guilty lovers. _now_, was his [greek: talamos] or bedroom, also his dining-room? if so, the author of the song, though so "late," knows what noack knows, and what the poets who assign sleeping chambers to wedded folks do not know, namely, that neither married gods nor married men have separate bedrooms. this is plain, for he makes hephaestus stand at the front door of his house, and shout to the gods to come and see the sinful lovers. [footnote: ibid., vi. 304-305] they all come and look on _from the front door_ (_odyssey_, vii. 325), which leads into the [greek: megaron], the hall. if the lovers are in bed in the hall, then hall and bedroom are all one, and the terribly late poet who made this lay knows it, though the late poets of the _odyssey_ and _iliad_ do not. it would appear that the author of the lay is not "late," as we shall prove in another case. noack, then, will not allow man or god to have a separate wedding chamber, nor women, before the late parts of the _odyssey_, to have separate quarters, except in the house of odysseus. women's chambers do not exist in the homeric house. [footnote: noack, p. 50.] if so, how remote is the true homeric house from the house of historical greece! as for upper chambers, those of the daughter of the house (_iliad,_ ii. 514; xvi. 184), both passages are "late," as we saw (noack, p.[blank space]). in the _odyssey_ penelope both sleeps and works at the shroud in an upper chamber. but the whole arrangement of upper chambers as women's apartments is as late, says noack, as the time of the poets and "redactors" (whoever they may have been) of the odyssey, xxi., xxii., xxiii. [footnote: noack, p. 68.] at the earliest these books are said to be of the eighth century b.c. here the late poets have their innings at last, and do modernise the homeric house. to prove the absence of upper rooms in the _iliad_ we have to abolish ii. 514, where astyoche meets her divine lover in her upper chamber, and xvi. 184, where polymêlê celebrates her amour with hermes "in the upper chambers." the places where these two passages occur, _catalogue_ (book ii.) and the _catalogue_ of the _myrmidons_ (book xvi.) are, indeed, both called "late," but the author of the latter knows the early law of bride-price, which is supposed to be unknown to the authors of "late" passages in the odyssey (xvi. 190). stated briefly, such are the ideas of noack. they leave us, at least, with permission to hold that the whole of the epics, except books xxi., xxii., and xxiii. of the odyssey, bear, as regards the house, the marks of a distinct peculiar age, coming between the period of mycenae and tiryns on one hand and the eighth century b.c. on the other. this is the point for which we have contended, and this suits our argument very well, though we are sorry to see that odyssey, books xxi., xxii., and xxiii., are no older than the eighth century b.c. but we have not been quite convinced that helen had not her separate chamber, that zeus had not his separate chamber, and that the upper chambers of the daughters of the house in the iliad are "late." where, if not in upper chambers, did the young princesses repose? again, the marked separation of the women in the house of odysseus may be the result of penelope's care in unusual circumstances, though she certainly would not build a separate hall for them. there are over a hundred handsome young scoundrels in her house all day long and deep into the night; she would, vainly, do her best to keep her girls apart. it stands to reason that young girls of princely families would have bedrooms in the house, not in the courtyard-bedrooms out of the way of enterprising young men. what safer place could be found for them than in upper chambers, as in the iliad? but, if their lovers were gods, we know that none "can see a god coming or going against his will." the arrangements of houses may and do vary in different cases in the same age. as examples we turn to the parallel afforded by the icelandic sagas and their pictures of houses of the eleventh century b.c. the present author long ago pointed out the parallel of the houses in the sagas and in homer. [footnote: _the_ house. butcher and lang. translation of the odyssey.] he took his facts from dasent's translation of the njal saga (1861, vol. i. pp. xcviii., ciii., with diagrams). as far as he is aware, no critic looked into the matter till mr. monro (1901), being apparently unacquainted with dasent's researches, found similar lore in works by dr. valtyr gudmundsson [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. pp. 491-495; _cf_. gudmundsson, _der islandske bottg i fristats tiden_, 1894; _cf_. dasent, _oxford_ essays, 1858.] the roof of the hall is supported by four rows of columns, the two inner rows are taller, and between them is the hearth, with seats of honour for the chief guests and the lord. the fire was in a kind of trench down the hall; and in very cold weather, we learn from dasent, long fires could be lit through the extent of the hall. the chief had a raised seat; the guests sat on benches. the high seats were at the centre; not till later times on the dais, as in a college hall. the tables were relatively small, and, as in homer, could be removed after a meal. the part of the hall with the dais in later days was partitioned off as a _stofa_ or parlour. in early times cooking was done in the hall. dr. gudmundsson, if i understand him, varies from dasent in some respects. i quote an abstract of his statement. "about the year 1000 houses generally consisted of, at least, four rooms; often a fifth was added, the so-called bath-room. the oldest form for houses was that of one long line or row of separate rooms united by wooden or clay corridors or partitions, and each covered with a roof. later, this was considered unpractical, and they began building some of the houses or rooms behind the others, which facilitated the access from one to another, and diminished the number of outer doors and corridors." "towards the latter part of the tenth century the _skaal_ was used as common sleeping-room for the whole family, including servants and serfs; it was fitted up in the same way as the hall. like this, it was divided in three naves by rows of wooden pillars; the middle floor was lower than that of the two side naves. in these were placed the so-called _saet_ or bed-places, not running the whole length of the [blank space] from gable to gable, but sideways, filling about a third part. each _saet_ was enclosed by broad, strong planks joined into the pillars, but not nailed on, so they might easily be taken out. these planks, called _sattestokke_, could also be turned sideways and used as benches during the day; they were often beautifully carved, and consequently highly valued." "when settling abroad the people took away with them these planks, and put them up in their new home as a symbol of domestic happiness. the _saet_ was occupied by the servants of the farm as sleeping-rooms; generally it was screened by hangings and low panels, which partitioned it off like huge separate boxes, used as beds." "all beds were filled with hay or straw; servants and serfs slept on this without any bedclothes, sometimes a sleeping-bag was used, or they covered themselves with deerskins or a mantle. the family had bed-clothes, but only in very wealthy houses were they also provided for the servants. moveable beds were extremely rare, but are sometimes mentioned. generally two people slept in each bed." "in the further end of the _skaal_, facing the door, opened out one or several small bedrooms, destined for the husband with wife and children, besides other members of the family, including guests of a higher standing. these small dormitories were separated by partitions of planks into bedrooms with one or several beds, and shut away from the outer _skaal_ either by a sliding-door in the wall or by an ordinary door shutting with a hasp. sometimes only a hanging covered the opening." "in some farms were found underground passages, leading from the master's bedside to an outside house, or even as far as a wood or another sheltered place in the neighbourhood, to enable the inhabitants to save themselves during a night attack. for the same reason each man had his arms suspended over his bed." "_ildhus_ or fire-house was the kitchen, often used besides as a sleeping-room when the farms were very small. this was quite abolished after the year 1000." "_buret_ was the provision house." "the bathroom was heated from a stone oven; the stones were heated red-hot and cold water thrown upon them, which developed a quantity of vapour. as the heat and the steam mounted, the people--men and women--crawled up to a shelf under the roof and remained there as in a turkish bath." "in large and wealthy houses there was also a women's room, with a fireplace built low down in the middle, as in the hall, where the women used to sit with their handiwork all day. the men were allowed to come in and talk to them, also beggar-women and other vagabonds, who brought them the news from other places. towards evening and for meals all assembled together in the hall." on this showing, people did not sleep in cabins partitioned off the dining-hall, but in the _skaale_; and two similar and similarly situated rooms, one the common dining-hall, the other the common sleeping-hall, have been confused by writers on the sagas. [footnote: gudmundsson, p, 14, note i.] can there be a similar confusion in the uses of _megaron_, _doma_, and _domos_? in the eyrbyggja saga we have descriptions of the "fire-hall," _skáli_ or _eldhús_. "the fire-hall was the common sleeping-room in icelandic homesteads." guests and strangers slept there; not in the portico, as in homer. "here were the lock-beds." there were butteries; one of these was reached by a ladder. the walls were panelled. [footnote: _the ere dwellers_, p. 145.] thorgunna had a "berth," apparently partitioned off, in the hall. [footnote: _ibid_., 137-140.] as in homer the hall was entered from the courtyard, in which were separate rooms for stores and other purposes. in the courtyard also, in the houses of gunnar of lithend and gisli at hawkdale, and doubtless in other cases, were the _dyngfur_, or ladies' chambers, their "bowers" (_thalamos_, like that of telemachus in the courtyard), where they sat spinning and gossiping. the _dyngja_ was originally called _búr_, our "bower"; the ballads say "in bower and hall." in the ballad of _margaret_, her parents are said to put her in the way of deadly sin by building her a bower, apparently separate from the main building; she would have been safer in an upper chamber, though, even there, not safe--at least, if a god wooed her! it does not appear that all houses had these chambers for ladies apart from the main building. you did not enter the main hall in iceland from the court directly in front, but by the "man's door" at the west side, whence you walked through the porch or outer hall (_prodomos_, _aithonsa_), in the centre of which, to the right, were the doors of the hall. the women entered by the women's door, at the eastern extremity. guests did not sleep, as in homer, in the _prodomos_, or the portico--the climate did not permit it--but in one or other hall. the hall was wainscotted; the walls were hung with shields and weapons, like the hall of odysseus. the heads of the family usually slept in the aisles, in chambers entered through the wainscot of the hall. such a chamber might be called _muchos_; it was private from the hall though under the same roof. it appears not improbable that some homeric halls had sleeping places of this kind; such a _muchos_ in iceland seems to have had windows. [footnote: story of burnt _njal_, i. 242.] gunnar himself, however, slept with his wife, halegerda, in an upper chamber; his mother, who lived with him, also had a room upstairs. in njal's house, too, there was an upper chamber, wherein the foes of njal threw fire. [footnote:_ibid_., ii. 173.] but njal and bergthora, his wife, when all hope was ended, went into their own bride-chamber in the separate aisle of the hall "and gave over their souls into god's hand." under a hide they lay; and when men raised up the hide, after the fire had done its work, "they were unburnt under it. all praised god for that, and thought it was a _great_ token." in this house was a weaving room for the women. [footnote:_ibid_, ii. 195.] it thus appears that icelandic houses of the heroic age, as regards structural arrangements, were practically identical with the house of odysseus, allowing for a separate sleeping-hall, while the differences between that and other homeric houses may be no more than the differences between various icelandic dwellings. the parents might sleep in bedchambers off the hall or in upper chambers. ladies might have bowers in the courtyard or might have none. the [greek: laurae]--each passage outside the hall--yielded sleeping rooms for servants; and there were store-rooms behind the passage at the top end of the hall, as well as separate chambers for stores in the courtyard. mr. leaf judiciously reconstructs the homeric house in its "public rooms," of which we hear most, while he leaves the residential portion with "details and limits probably very variable." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. pp. 586-589, with diagram based on the palace of tiryns.] given variability, which is natural and to be expected, and given the absence of detail about the "residential portion" of other houses than that of odysseus in the poems, it does not seem to us that this house is conspicuously "late," still less that it is the house of historical greece. manifestly, in all respects it more resembles the houses of njal and gunnar of lithend in the heroic age of iceland. in the house, as in the uses of iron and bronze, the weapons, armour, relations of the sexes, customary laws, and everything else, homer gives us an harmonious picture of a single and peculiar age. we find no stronger mark of change than in the odyssean house, if that be changed, which we show reason to doubt. chapter xi notes of change in the "odyssey" if the homeric descriptions of details of life contain anachronisms, points of detail inserted in later progressive ages, these must be peculiarly conspicuous in the odyssey. longinus regarded it as the work of homer's advanced life, the sunset of his genius, and nobody denies that it assumes the existence of the _iliad_ and is posterior to that epic. in the odyssey, then, we are to look, if anywhere, for indications of a changed society. that the language of the _odyssey_, and of four books of the _iliad_ (ix., x., xxiii., xxiv.), exhibits signs of change is a critical commonplace, but the language is matter for a separate discussion; we are here concerned with the ideas, manners, customary laws, weapons, implements, and so forth of the epics. taking as a text mr. monro's essay, _the relation of the odyssey to the iliad_, [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. pp. 324, _seqq_.] we examine the notes of difference which he finds between the twin epics. as to the passages in which he discovers "borrowing or close imitation of passages" in the _iliad_ by the poet of the _odyssey_, we shall not dwell on the matter, because we know so little about the laws regulating the repetition of epic formulae. it is tempting, indeed, to criticise mr. monro's list of twenty-four odyssean "borrowings," and we might arrive at some curious results. for example, we could show that the _klôthes_, the spinning women who "spae" the fate of each new-born child, are not later, but, as less abstract, are if anything earlier than "the simple _aisa_ of the _iliad_." [footnote: _odyssey_, vii. 197; _iliad_, xx. 127.] but our proof would require an excursion into the beliefs of savage and barbaric peoples who have their _klôthes_, spae-women attending each birth, but who are not known to have developed the idea of _aisa_ or fate. we might also urge that "to send a spear through the back of a stag" is not, as mr. monro thought, "an improbable feat," and that a man wounded to death as leiocritus was wounded, would not, as mr. monro argued, fall backwards. he supposes that the poet of the _odyssey_ borrowed the forward fall from a passage in the _iliad_, where the fall is in keeping. but, to make good our proof, it might be necessary to spear a human being in the same way as leiocritus was speared. [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. pp. 239, 230.] the repetitions of the epic, at all events, are not the result of the weakness of a poet who had to steal his expressions like a schoolboy. they have some other cause than the indolence or inefficiency of a _cento_--making undergraduate. indeed, a poet who used the many terms in the _odyssey_ which do not occur in the _iliad_ was not constrained to borrow from any predecessor. it is needless to dwell on the odyssean novelties in vocabulary, which were naturally employed by a poet who had to sing of peace, not of war, and whose epic, as aristotle says, is "ethical," not military. the poet's rich vocabulary is appropriate to his novel subject, that is all. coming to religion (i) we find mr. leaf assigning to his original _achilleis_--"the kernel"--the very same religious ideas as mr. monro takes to be marks of "lateness" and of advance when he finds them in the odyssey! in the original oldest part of the _iliad_, says mr. leaf, "the gods show themselves just so much as to let us know what are the powers which control mankind from heaven.... their interference is such as becomes the rulers of the world, not partisans in the battle." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. pp. xii., xiii.] it is the later poets of the _iliad_, in mr. leaf's view, who introduce the meddlesome, undignified, and extremely unsportsmanlike gods. the original early poet of the _iliad_ had the nobler religious conceptions. in that case--the _odyssey_ being later than the original kernel of the iliad--the _odyssey_ ought to give us gods as undignified and unworthy as those exhibited by the later continuators of the _iliad_. but the reverse is the case. the gods behave fairly well in book xxiv. of the _iliad_, which, we are to believe, is the latest, or nearly the latest, portion. they are all wroth with the abominable behaviour of achilles to dead hector (xxiv. 134). they console and protect priam. as for the _odyssey_, mr. monro finds that in this late epic the gods are just what mr. leaf proclaims them to have been in his old original kernel. "there is now an olympian concert that carries on something like a moral government of the world. it is very different in the _iliad_...." [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, ii. 335.] but it was not very different; it was just the same, in mr. leaf's genuine old original germ of the _iliad_. in fact, the gods are "very much like you and me." when their _ichor_ is up, they misbehave as we do when our blood is up, during the fury of war. when hector is dead and when the war is over, the gods give play to their higher nature, as men do. there is no difference of religious conception to sever the _odyssey_ from the later but not from the original parts of the _iliad_. it is all an affair of the circumstances in each case. the _odyssey_ is calmer, more reflective, more _religious_ than the _iliad_, being a poem of peace. the _iliad_, a poem of war, is more _mythological_ than the _odyssey_: the gods in the _iliad_ are excited, like the men, by the great war and behave accordingly. that neither gods nor men show any real sense of the moral weakness of agamemnon or achilles, or of the moral superiority of hector, is an unacceptable statement. [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. p. 336.] even achilles and agamemnon are judged by men and by the poet according to their own standard of ethics and of customary law. there is really no doubt on this point. too much (2) is made of the supposed different views of olympus--a mountain in thessaly in the _iliad_; a snowless, windless, supra-mundane place in _odyssey_, v. 41-47. [footnote: _ibid_., ii. 396.] of the odyssean passage mr. merry justly says, "the actual description is not irreconcilable with the general homeric picture of olympus." it is "an idealised mountain," and conceptions of it vary, with the variations which are essential to and inseparable from all mythological ideas. as mr. leaf says, [footnote: note to _iliad_, v. 750.] "heaven, _ouranos_ and olympus, if not identical, are at least closely connected." in v. 753, the poet "regarded the summit of olympus as a half-way stage between heaven and earth," thus "departing from the oldest homeric tradition, which made the earthly mountain olympus, and not any aerial region, the dwelling of the gods." but precisely the same confusion of mythical ideas occurs among a people so backward as the australian south-eastern tribes, whose all father is now seated on a hill-top and now "above the sky." in _iliad_, viii. 25, 26, the poet is again said to have "entirely lost the real epic conception of olympus as a mountain in thessaly," and to "follow the later conception, which removed it from earth to heaven." in _iliad_, xi. 184, "from heaven" means "from the summit of olympus, which, though homer does not identify it with _oupavos_, still, as a mountain, reached into heaven" (leaf). the poet of iliad, xi. 184, says plainly that zeus descended "_from_ heaven" to mount ida. in fact, all that is said of olympus, of heaven, of the home of the gods, is poetical, is mythical, and so is necessarily subject to the variations of conception inseparable from mythology. this is certain if there be any certainty in mythological science, and here no hard and fast line can be drawn between _odyssey_ and _iliad_. (3) the next point of difference is that, "we hear no more of iris as the messenger of zeus;" in the odyssey, "the agent of the will of zeus is now hermes, as in the twenty-fourth book of the _iliad_," a late "odyssean" book. but what does that matter, seeing that _iliad_, book viii, is declared to be one of the latest additions; yet in book viii. iris, not hermes, is the messenger (viii. 409-425). if in late times hermes, not iris, is the messenger, why, in a very "late" book (viii.) is iris the messenger, not hermes? _iliad_, book xxiii., is also a late "odyssean" book, but here iris goes on her messages (xxiii. 199) moved merely by the prayers of achilles. in the late odyssean book (xxiv.) of the _iliad_, iris runs on messages from zeus both to priam and to achilles. if iris, in "odyssean" times, had resigned office and been succeeded by hermes, why did achilles pray, not to hermes, but to iris? there is nothing in the argument about hermes and iris. there is nothing in the facts but the variability of mythical and poetical conceptions. moreover, the conception of iris as the messenger certainly existed through the age of the odyssey, and later. in the odyssey the beggar man is called "irus," a male iris, because he carries messages; and iris does her usual duty as messenger in the homeric hymns, as well as in the so-called late odyssean books of the _iliad_. the poet of the odyssey knew all about iris; there had arisen no change of belief; he merely employed hermes as messenger, not of the one god, but of the divine assembly. (4) another difference is that in the _iliad_ the wife of hephaestus is one of the graces; in the odyssey she is aphrodite. [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, vol. ii. p. 336.] this is one of the inconsistencies which are the essence of mythology. mr. leaf points out that when hephaestus is about exercising his craft, in making arms for achilles, charis "is made wife of hephaestus by a more transparent allegory than we find elsewhere in homer," whereas, when aphrodite appears in a comic song by demodocus (odyssey, viii. 266-366), "that passage is later and un-homeric." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 246.] of this we do not accept the doctrine that the lay is un-homeric. the difference comes to no more than _that;_ the accustomed discrepancy of mythology, of story-telling about the gods. but as to the lay of demodocus being un-homeric and late, the poet at least knows the regular homeric practice of the bride-price, and its return by the bride's father to the husband of an adulterous wife (odyssey, viii. 318, 319). the poet of this lay, which mr. merry defends as homeric, was intimately familiar with homeric customary law. now, according to paul cauer, as we shall see, other "odyssean" poets were living in an age of changed law, later than that of the author of the lay of demodocus. all these so-called differences between _iliad_ and odyssey do not point to the fact that the _odyssey_ belongs to a late and changed period of culture, of belief and customs. there is nothing in the evidence to prove that contention. there (5) are two references to local oracles in the _odyssey,_ that of dodona (xiv. 327; xix. 296) and that of pytho (viii. 80). this is the old name of delphi. pytho occurs in _iliad,_ ix. 404, as a very rich temple of apollo--the oracle is not named, but the oracle brought in the treasures. achilles (xvi. 233) prays to pelasgian zeus of dodona, whose priests were thickly tabued, but says nothing of the oracle of dodona. neither when in leaguer round troy, nor when wandering in fairy lands forlorn, had the achaeans or odysseus much to do with the local oracles of greece; perhaps not, in homer's time, so important as they were later, and little indeed is said about them in either epic. (6) "the geographical knowledge shown in the odyssey goes beyond that of the _iliad_ ... especially in regard to egypt and sicily." but a poet of a widely wandering hero of western greece has naturally more occasion than the poet of a fixed army in asia to show geographical knowledge. egyptian thebes is named, in _iliad_, ix., as a city very rich, especially in chariots; while in the _odyssey_ the poet has occasion to show more knowledge of the way to egypt and of viking descents from crete on the coast (odyssey, iii. 300; iv. 351; xiv. 257; xvii. 426). archaeology shows that the mycenaean age was in close commercial relation with egypt, and that the mycenaean civilisation extended to most mediterranean lands and islands, and to italy and sicily. [footnote: ridgeway, _early age of greece_, i. 69.] there is nothing suspicious, as "late," in the mention of sicily by odysseus in ithaca (odyssey, xx. 383; xxiv. 307). in the same way, if the poet of a western poem does not dilate on the troad and the people of asia minor as the poet of the _iliad_ does, that is simply because the scene of the _iliad_ is in asia and the scene of the odyssey is in the west, when it is not in no man's land. from the same cause the poet of sea-faring has more occasion to speak of the phoenicians, great sea-farers, than the poet of the trojan leaguer. (7) we know so little about land tenure in homeric times--and, indeed, early land tenure is a subject so complex and obscure that it is not easy to prove advance towards separate property in the _odyssey_--beyond what was the rule in the time of the _iliad_. in the making of the arms (xviii. 541-549) we find many men ploughing a field, and this may have been a common field. but in what sense? many ploughs were at work at once on a scottish runrig field, and each farmer had his own strip on several common fields, but each farmer held by rent, or by rent and services, from the laird. these common fields were not common property. in xii. 422 we have "a common field," and men measuring a strip and quarrelling about the marking-stones, across the "baulk," but it does not follow that they are owners; they may be tenants. such quarrels were common in scotland when the runrig system of common fields, each man with his strip, prevailed. [footnote: grey graham, _social life in scotland in the eighteenth century_, i. 157.] a man had a [greek: klaeros] or lot (_iliad_, xv. 448), but what was a "lot"? at first, probably, a share in land periodically shifted-& _partage noir_ of the russian peasants. kings and men who deserve public gratitude receive a [greek: temenos] a piece of public land, as bellerophon did from the lycians (vi. 194). in the case of melager such an estate is offered to him, but by whom? not by the people at large, but by the [greek: gerontes] (ix. 574). who are the [greek: gerontes]? they are not ordinary men of the people; they are, in fact, the gentry. in an age so advanced from tribal conditions as is the homeric time--far advanced beyond ancient tribal scotland or ireland--we conceive that, as in these countries during the tribal period, the [greek: gerontes] (in celtic, the _flaith_) held in possession, if not in accordance with the letter of the law, as property, much more land than a single "lot." the irish tribal freeman had a right to a "lot," redistributed by rotation. wealth consisted of cattle; and a _bogire_, a man of many kine, let _them_ out to tenants. such a rich man, a _flatha_, would, in accordance with human nature, use his influence with kineless dependents to acquire in possession several lots, avoid the partition, and keep the lots in possession though not legally in property. such men were the irish _flaith_, gentry under the _ri_, or king, his [greek: gerontes], each with his _ciniod_, or near kinsmen, to back his cause. "_flaith_ seems clearly to mean land-owners," or squires, says sir james ramsay. [footnote: _foundations of england_, i. 16, note 4.] if land, contrary to the tribal ideal, came into private hands in early ireland, we can hardly suppose that, in the more advanced and settled homeric society, no man but the king held land equivalent in extent to a number of "lots." the [greek: gerontes], the gentry, the chariot-owning warriors, of whom there are hundreds not of kingly rank in homer (as in ireland there were many _flaith_ to one _ri_) probably, in an informal but tight grip, held considerable lands. when we note their position in the _iliad_, high above the nameless host, can we imagine that they did not hold more land than the simple, perhaps periodically shifting, "lot"? there were "lotless" men (odyssey, xl 490), lotless _freemen_, and what had become of their lots? had they not fallen into the hands of the [greek: gerontes] or the _flaith_? mr. ridgeway in a very able essay [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, vi. 319-339.] holds different opinions. he points out that among a man's possessions, in the _iliad_, we hear only of personal property and live stock. it is in one passage only in the odyssey (xiv. 211) that we meet with men holding several lots of land; but _they_, we remark, occur in cretean isle, as we know, of very advanced civilisation from of old. mr. ridgeway also asks whether the lotless men may not be "outsiders," such as are attached to certain villages of central and southern india; [footnote: maine, _village communities_, p. 127.] or they may answer to the _fuidhir_, or "broken men," of early ireland, fugitives from one to another tribe. they would be "settled on the waste lands of a community." if so, they would not be lotless; they would have new lots. [footnote: _journal of hellenic studies_, vi. 322, 323.] laertes, though a king, is supposed to have won his farm by his own labours from the waste (odyssey, xxiv. 207). mr. monro says, "the land having thus been won from the wastes (the [greek: gae aklaeros te kai aktitos] of _h., ven._ 123), was a [greek: temenos] or separate possession of laertes." the passage is in the rejected conclusion of the odyssey; and if any man might go and squat in the waste, any man might have a lot, or better than one lot. in _iliad_, xxiii. 832-835, achilles says that his offered prize of iron will be useful to a man "whose rich fields are very remote from any town," teucer and meriones compete for the prize: probably they had such rich remote fields, not each a mere lot in a common field. these remote fields they are supposed to hold in perpetuity, apart from the _temenos_, which, in mr. ridgeway's opinion, reverted, on the death of each holder, to the community, save where kingship was hereditary. now, if [greek: klaeros] had come to mean "a lot of land," as we say "a building lot," obviously men like teucer and meriones had many lots, rich fields, which at death might sometimes pass to their heirs. thus there was separate landed property in the _iliad_; but the passage is denounced, though not by mr. ridgeway, as "late." the absence of enclosures ([greek: herkos arouraes]) proves nothing about absence of several property in land. in scotland the laird's lands were unenclosed till deep in the eighteenth century. my own case for land in private possession, in homeric times, rests mainly on human nature in such an advanced society. such possession as i plead for is in accordance with human nature, in a society so distinguished by degrees of wealth as is the homeric. unless we are able to suppose that all the gentry of the _iliad_ held no "rich fields remote from towns," each having but one rotatory lot apiece, there is no difference in iliadic and odyssean land tenure, though we get clearer lights on it in the _odyssey_. the position of the man of several lots may have been indefensible, if the ideal of tribal law were ever made real, but wealth in growing societies universally tends to override such law. mr. keller [footnote: homeric society, p. 192. 1902.] justly warns us against the attempt "to apply universally certain fixed rules of property development. the passages in homer upon which opinions diverge most are isolated ones, occurring in similes and fragmentary descriptions. under such conditions the formulation of theories or the attempt rigorously to classify can be little more than an intellectual exercise." we have not the materials for a scientific knowledge of homeric real property; and, with all our materials in irish law books, how hard it is for us to understand the early state of such affairs in ireland! but does any one seriously suppose that the knightly class of the _iliad_, the chariot-driving gentlemen, held no more land--legally or by permitted custom--than the two homeric swains who vituperate each other across a baulk about the right to a few feet of a strip of a runrig field? whosoever can believe that may also believe that the practice of adding "lot" to "lot" began in the period between the finished composition of the _iliad_ (or of the parts of it which allude to land tenure) and the beginning of the _odyssey_ (or of the parts of it which refer to land tenure). the inference is that, though the fact is not explicitly stated in the _iliad_, there were men who held more "lots" than one in iliadic times as well as in the odyssean times, when, in a solitary passage of the odyssey, we do hear of such men in crete. but whosoever has pored over early european land tenures knows how dim our knowledge is, and will not rush to employ his lore in discriminating between the date of the _iliad_ and the date of the odyssey. not much proof of change in institutions between iliadic and odyssean times can be extracted from two passages about the ethna, or bride-price of penelope. the rule in both _iliad_ and _odyssey_ is that the wooer gives a bride-price to the father of the bride, ethna. this was the rule known even to that painfully late and un-homeric poet who made the song of demodocus about the loves of ares and aphrodite. in that song the injured husband, hephaestus, claims back the bride-price which he had paid to the father of his wife, zeus. [footnote: odyssey, viii. 318.] this is the accepted custom throughout the _odyssey_ (vi. 159; xvi. 77; xx. 335; xxi. 162; xv. 17, &c.). so far there is no change of manners, no introduction of the later practice, a dowry given with the bride, in place of a bride-price given to the father by the bridegroom. but penelope was neither maid, wife, nor widow; her husband's fate, alive or dead, was uncertain, and her son was so anxious to get her out of the house that he says he offered gifts _with_ her (xx. 342). in the same way, to buy back the goodwill of achilles, agamemnon offers to give him his daughter without bride-price, and to add great gifts (_iliad_, ix. l47)--the term for the gifts is [greek: mailia]. people, of course, could make their own bargain; take as much for their daughter as they could get, or let the gifts go from husband to bride, and then return to the husband's home with her (as in germany in the time of tacitus, _germania_, 18), or do that, and throw in more gifts. but in odyssey, ii. 53, telemachus says that the wooers shrink from going to the house of penelope's father, icarius, who would endow (?) his daughter ([greek: eednoosaito]) and again (_odyssey_, i. 277; ii. 196), her father's folk will furnish a bridal feast, and "array the [greek: heedna], many, such as should accompany a dear daughter." some critics think that the gifts here are _dowry_, a later institution than bride-price; others, that the father of the dear daughter merely chose to be generous, and returned the bride-price, or its equivalent, in whole or part. [footnote: merry, odyssey, vol. i. p. 50. note to book i 277.] if the former view be correct, these passages in odyssey, i., ii. are later than the exceedingly "late" song of demodocus. if the latter theory be correct the father is merely showing goodwill, and doing as the germans did when they were in a stage of culture much earlier than the homeric. the position of penelope is very unstable and legally perplexing. has her father her marriage? has her son her marriage? is she not perhaps still a married woman with a living husband? telemachus would give much to have her off his hands, but he refuses to send her to her father's house, where the old man might be ready enough to return the bride-price to her new husband, and get rid of her with honour. for if telemachus sends his mother away against her will he will have to pay a heavy fine to her father, and to thole his mother's curse, and lose his character among men (odyssey, ii. 130-138). the icelanders of the saga period gave dowries with their daughters. but when njal wanted hildigunna for his foster-son, hauskuld, he offered to give [greek: hedna]. "i will lay down as much money as will seem fitting to thy niece and thyself," he says to flosi, "if thou wilt think of making this match." [footnote: story of _burnt njal_, ii. p. 81.] circumstances alter cases, and we must be hard pressed to discover signs of change of manners in the odyssey as compared with the _iliad_ if we have to rely on a solitary mention of "men of many lots" in crete, and on the perplexed proposals for the second marriage of penelope. [footnote: for the alleged "alteration of old customs" see cauer, _grundfragen der homerkritik_, pp. 193-194.] we must not be told that the many other supposed signs of change, iris, olympus, and the rest, have "cumulative weight." if we have disposed of each individual supposed note of change in beliefs and manners in its turn, then these proofs have, in each case, no individual weight and, cumulatively, are not more ponderous than a feather. chapter xii linguistic proofs of various dates the great strength of the theory that the poems are the work of several ages is the existence in them of various strata of languages, earlier and later. not to speak of differences of vocabulary, mr. monro and mr. leaf, with many scholars, detect two strata of earlier and later _grammar_ in iliad and odyssey. in the _iliad_ four or five books are infected by "the later grammar," while the odyssey in general seems to be contaminated. mr. leafs words are: "when we regard the epos in large masses, we see that we can roughly arrange the inconsistent elements towards one end or the other of a line of development both linguistic and historical. the main division, that of _iliad_ and odyssey, shows a distinct advance along this line; and the distinction is still more marked if we group with the _odyssey_ four books of the _iliad_ whose odyssean physiognomy is well marked. taking as our main guide the dissection of the plot as shown in its episodes, we find that marks of lateness, though nowhere entirely absent, group themselves most numerously in the later additions ..." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. x.] we are here concerned with _linguistic_ examples of "lateness." the "four books whose odyssean physiognomy" and language seem "well marked," are ix., x., xxiii., xxiv. here mr. leaf, mr. monro, and many authorities are agreed. but to these four odyssean books of the _iliad_ mr. leaf adds _iliad_, xi. 664-772: "probably a later addition," says mr. monro. "it is notably odyssean in character," says mr. leaf; and the author "is ignorant of the geography of the western peloponnesus. no doubt the author was an asiatic greek." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. pp. 465-466. note on book xi. 756.] the value of this discovery is elsewhere discussed (see _the interpolations of nestor_). the odyssean notes in this passage of a hundred lines (_iliad_, xi. 670-762) are the occurrence of "a purely odyssean word" (677), an attic form of an epic word, and a "forbidden trochaic caesura in the fourth foot"; an odyssean word for carving meat, applied in a _non_-odyssean sense (688), a verb for "insulting," not elsewhere found in the _iliad_ (though the noun is in the _iliad_) (695), an odyssean epithet of the sun, "four times in the _odyssey_" (735). it is also possible that there is an allusion to a four-horse chariot (699). these are the proofs of odyssean lateness. the real difficulty about odyssean words and grammar in the _iliad_ is that, if they were in vigorous poetic existence down to the time of pisistratus (as the odysseanism of the asiatic editor proves that they were), and if every rhapsodist could add to and alter the materials at the disposal of the pisistratean editor at will, we are not told how the fashionable odysseanisms were kept, on the whole, out of twenty books of the iliad. this is a point on which we cannot insist too strongly, as an argument against the theory that, till the middle of the sixth century b.c., the _iliad_ scarcely survived save in the memory of strolling rhapsodists. if that were so, all the books of the _iliad_ would, in the course of recitation of old and composition of new passages, be equally contaminated with late odyssean linguistic style. it could not be otherwise; all the books would be equally modified in passing through the lips of modern reciters and composers. therefore, if twenty out of twenty-four books are pure, or pure in the main, from odysseanisms, while four are deeply stained with them, the twenty must not only be earlier than the four, but must have been specially preserved, and kept uncontaminated, in some manner inconsistent with the theory that all alike scarcely existed save in the memory or invention of late strolling reciters. how the twenty books relatively pure "in grammatical forms, in syntax, and in vocabulary," could be kept thus clean without the aid of written texts, i am unable to imagine. if left merely to human memory and at the mercy of reciters and new poets, they would have become stained with "the defining article"--and, indeed, an employment of the article which startles grammarians, appears even in the eleventh line of the first book of the _iliad_? [footnote (exact placing uncertain): cf. monro and leaf, on iliad, i. 11-12.] left merely to human memory and the human voice, the twenty more or less innocent books would have abounded, like the odyssey, in [greek: amphi] with the dative meaning "about," and with [greek: ex] "in consequence of," and "the extension of the use of [greek: ei] clauses as final and objective clauses," and similar marks of lateness, so interesting to grammarians. [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, ii. pp. 331-333.] but the twenty books are almost, or quite, inoffensive in these respects. now, even in ages of writing, it has been found difficult or impossible to keep linguistic novelties and novelties of metre out of old epics. we later refer (_archaeology of the epic_) to the _chancun de willame_, of which an unknown benefactor printed two hundred copies in 1903. mr. raymond weeks, in _romania_, describes _willame_ as taking a place beside the _chanson de roland_ in the earliest rank of _chansons de geste_. if the text can be entirely restored, the poem will appear as "the most primitive" of french epics of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. but it has passed from copy to copy in the course of generations. the methods of versification change, and, after line 2647, "there are traces of change in the language. the word _ço_, followed by a vowel, hitherto frequent, never again reappears. the vowel _i_, of _li_, nominative masculine of the article" (_li reis_, "the king"), "never occurs in the text after line 2647. up to that point it is elided or not at pleasure.... there is a progressive tendency towards hiatus. after line 1980 the system of assonance changes. _an_ and en have been kept distinct hitherto; this ceases to be the case." [footnote: _romania_, xxxiv. pp. 240-246.] the poem is also notable, like the _iliad_, for textual repetition of passages, but that is common to all early poetry, which many homeric critics appear not to understand. in this example we see how apt novelties in grammar and metre are to steal into even written copies of epics, composed in and handed down through uncritical ages; and we are confirmed in the opinion that the relatively pure and orthodox grammar and metre of the twenty books must have been preserved by written texts carefully 'executed. the other four books, if equally old, were less fortunate. their grammar and metre, we learn, belong to a later stratum of language. these opinions of grammarians are not compatible with the hypothesis that _all_ of the _iliad_, even the "earliest" parts, are loaded with interpolations, forced in at different places and in any age from 1000 b.c. to 540 b.c.; for if that theory were true, the whole of the _iliad_ would equally be infected with the later odyssean grammar. according to mr. monro and sir richard jebb, it is not. but suppose, on the other hand, that the later odyssean grammar abounds all through the whole _iliad_, then that grammar is not more odyssean than it is iliadic. the alleged distinction of early iliadic grammar, late odyssean grammar, in that case vanishes. mr. leaf is more keen than mr. monro and sir richard jebb in detecting late grammar in the _iliad_ beyond the bounds of books ix., x., xxiii., xxiv. but he does not carry these discoveries so far as to make the late grammar no less iliadic than odyssean. in book viii. of the _iliad_, which he thinks was only made for the purpose of introducing book ix., [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 332. 1900.] we ought to find the late odyssean grammar just as much as we do in book ix., for it is of the very same date, and probably by one or more of the same authors as book ix. but we do not find the odyssean grammar in book viii. mr. leaf says, "the peculiar character" of book viii. "is easily understood, when we recognise the fact that book viii. is intended to serve only as a means for the introduction of book ix...." which is "late" and "odyssean." then book viii., intended to introduce book ix., must be at least as late as book ix. and might be expected to be at least as odyssean, indeed one would think it could not be otherwise. yet it is not so. mr. leaf's theory has thus to face the difficulty that while the whole _iliad_, by his view, for more than four centuries, was stuffed with late interpolations, in the course of oral recital through all greek lands, and was crammed with original "copy" by a sycophant of pisistratus about 540 b.c., the late grammar concentrated itself in only some four books. till some reasonable answer is given to this question--how did twenty books of the iliad preserve so creditably the ancient grammar through centuries of change, and of recitation by rhapsodists who used the odyssean grammar, which infected the four other books, and the whole of the _odyssey?_--it seems hardly worth while to discuss this linguistic test. any scholar who looks at these pages knows all about the proofs of grammar of a late date in the _odyssey_ and the four contaminated books of the _iliad_. but it may be well to give a few specimens, for the enlightenment of less learned readers of homer. the use of [greek: amfi], with the dative, meaning "about," when _thinking_ or _speaking_ "about" odysseus or anything else, is peculiar to the _odyssey_. but how has it not crept into the four odyssean contaminated books of the _iliad_? [greek: peri], with the genitive, "follows verbs meaning to speak or know _about_ a person," but only in the _odyssey_. what preposition follows such verbs in the _iliad_? here, again, we ask: how did the contaminated books of the _iliad_ escape the stain of [greek: peri], with the genitive, after verbs meaning to speak or know? what phrase do they use in the _iliad_ for speaking or asking _about_ anybody? [footnote (exact placing uncertain): monro, homeric _grammar_. see index, under _iliad_, p. 339.] [greek: meta], with the genitive, meaning "among" or "with," comes twice in the odyssey (x. 320; xvi. 140) and thrice in the _iliad_ (xiii. 700; xxi. 458; xxiv. 400); but all these passages in the _iliad_ are disposed of as "late" parts of the poem. [greek: epi], with the accusative, meaning _towards_ a person, comes often in the _iliad_; once in the odyssey. but it comes four times in _iliad_, book x., which almost every critic scouts as very "late" indeed. if so, why does the "late" _odyssey_ not deal in this grammatical usage so common in the "late" book x. of the _iliad_? [greek: epi], with the accusative, "meaning _extent_ (without _motion_)," is chiefly found in the _odyssey_, and in the iliad, ix., x., xxiv. on consulting grammarians one thinks that there is not much in this. [greek: proti] with the dative, meaning "in addition to," occurs only once (_odyssey, x. 68_). if it occurs only once, there is little to be learned from the circumstance. [greek: ana] with the genitive, is only in _odyssey_, only thrice, always of going on board a ship. there are not many ship-farings in the _iliad_. odysseus and his men are not described as going on board their ship, in so many words, in _iliad_, book i. the usage occurs in the poem where the incidents of seafaring occur frequently, as is to be expected? it is not worth while to persevere with these tithes of mint and cummin. if "neglect of position" be commoner--like "hiatus in the bucolic diaeresis"--in the _odyssey_ and in _iliad_, xxiii., xxiv., why do the failings not beset _iliad_, ix., x., these being such extremely "late" books? as to the later use of the article in the _odyssey_ and the odyssean books of the _iliad_, it appears to us that book i. of the _iliad_ uses the article as it is used in book x.; but on this topic we must refer to a special treatise on the language of _iliad_, book x., which is promised. turning to the vocabulary: "words expressive of civilisation" are bound to be more frequent, as they are, in the odyssey, a poem of peaceful life, than in a poem about an army in action, like the _iliad_. out of all this no clue to the distance of years dividing the two poems can be found. as to words concerning religion, the same holds good. the odyssey is more frequently _religious_ (see the case of eumaeus) than the _iliad_. in morals the term [greek: dikaios] is more used in the _odyssey_, also [greek: atemistos] ("just" and "lawless"). but that is partly because the odyssey has to contrast civilised ("just") with wild outlandish people--cyclopes and laestrygons, who are "lawless." the _iliad_ has no occasion to touch on savages; but, as the [greek: hybris] of the wooers is a standing topic in the odyssey (an ethical poem, says aristotle), the word [greek: hybris] is of frequent occurrence in the _odyssey_, in just the same sense as it bears in _iliad_, i 214--the insolence of agamemnon. yet when achilles has occasion to speak of agamemnon's insolence in _iliad_, book ix., he does not use the _word_ [greek: hybris], though book ix. is so very "late" and "odyssean." it would be easy to go through the words for moral ideas in the _odyssey_, and to show that they occur in the numerous moral situations which do not arise, or arise much less frequently, in the _iliad_. there is not difference enough in the moral standard of the two poems to justify us in assuming that centuries of ethical progress had intervened between their dates of composition. if the _iliad_, again, were really, like the _odyssey_, a thing of growth through several centuries, which overlapped the centuries in which the _odyssey_ grew, the moral ideas of the _iliad_ and _odyssey_ would necessarily be much the same, would be indistinguishable. but, as a matter of fact, it would be easy to show that the moral standard of the _iliad_ is higher, in many places, than the moral standard of the _odyssey_; and that, therefore, by the critical hypothesis, the _iliad_ is the later poem of the twain. for example, the behaviour of achilles is most obnoxious to the moralist in _iliad_, book ix., where he refuses gifts of conciliation. but by the critical hypothesis this is not the fault of the _iliad_, for book ix. is declared to be "late," and of the same date as late parts of the _odyssey_. achilles is not less open to moral reproach in his abominable cruelty and impiety, as shown in his sacrifice of prisoners of war and his treatment of dead hector, in _iliad_, xxiii., xxiv. but these books also are said to be as late as the _odyssey_. the solitary "realistic" or "naturalistic" passage in homer, with which a lover of modern "problem novels" feels happy and at home, is the story of phoenix, about his seduction of his father's mistress at the request of his mother. what a charming situation! but that occurs in an "odyssean" book of the _iliad_, book ix.; and thus odyssean seems lower, not more advanced, than iliadic taste in morals. to be sure, the poet disapproves of all these immoralities. in the odyssey the hero, to the delight of athene, lies often and freely and with glee. the achilles of the _iliad_ hates a liar "like the gates of hades"; but he says so in an "odyssean" book (book ix.), so there were obviously different standards in odyssean ethics. as to the odyssey being the work of "a milder age," consider the hanging of penelope's maids and the abominable torture of melanthius. there is no torturing in the [blank space] for the _iliad_ happens not to deal with treacherous thralls. _enfin_, there is no appreciable moral advance in the _odyssey_ on the moral standard of the _iliad_. it is rather the other way. odysseus, in the _odyssey_, tries to procure poison for his arrow-heads. the person to whom he applies is too moral to oblige him. we never learn that a hero of the _iliad_ would use poisoned arrows. the poet himself obviously disapproves; in both poems the poet is always on the side of morality and of the highest ethical standard of his age. the standard in both epics is the same; in both some heroes fall short of the standard. to return to linguistic tests, it is hard indeed to discover what mr. leaf's opinion of the value of linguistic tests of lateness really is. "it is on such fundamental discrepancies"--as he has found in books ix., xvi.--"that we can depend, _and on these alone_, when we come to dissect the _iliad_ ... some critics have attempted to base their analysis on evidences from language, but i do not think they are sufficient to bear the super-structure which has been raised on them." [footnote: _companion,_ p. 25.] he goes on, still placing a low value on linguistic tests alone, to say: "it is on the broad grounds of the construction and motives of the poem, _and not on any merely linguistic considerations_, that a decision must be sought." [footnote: _ibid_., p. x.] but he contradicts these comfortable words when he comes to "the latest expansions," such as books xxiii., xxiv. "the latest expansions are thoroughly in the spirit of those which precede, _them on account of linguistic evidence,_ which definitely classes them with the _odyssey_ rather than the rest of the _iliad_." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. xiv.] now as mr. leaf has told us that we must depend on "fundamental discrepancies," "on these alone," when we want to dissect the _iliad;_ as he has told us that linguistic tests alone are "not sufficient to bear the superstructure," &c., how can we lop off two books "only on account of linguistic evidence"? it would appear that on this point, as on others, mr. leaf has entirely changed his mind. but, even in the _companion_ (p. 388), he had amputated book xxiv. for no "fundamental discrepancy," but because of "its close kinship to the _odyssey_, as in the whole language of the book." here, as in many other passages, if we are to account for discrepancies by the theory of multiplex authorship, we must decide that mr. leaf's books are the work of several critics, not of one critic only. but there is excellent evidence to prove that here we would be mistaken. confessedly and regretfully no grammarian, i remain unable, in face of what seem contradictory assertions about the value of linguistic tests, to ascertain what they are really worth, and what, if anything, they really prove. mr. monro allows much for "the long insensible influence of attic recitation upon the homeric text;" ... "many attic peculiarities may be noted" (so much so that aristarchus thought homer must have been an athenian!). "the poems suffered a gradual and unsystematic because generally unconscious process of modernising, the chief agents in which were the rhapsodists" (reciters in a later democratic age), "who wandered over all parts of greece, and were likely to be influenced by all the chief forms of literature." [footnote: monro, _homeric grammar_, pp 394-396. 1891] then, wherefore insist so much on tests of language? mr. monro was not only a great grammarian; he had a keen appreciation of poetry. thus he was conspicuously uneasy in his hypothesis, based on words and grammar, that the two last books of the _iliad_ are by a late hand. after quoting shelley's remark that, in these two books, "homer truly begins to be himself," mr. monro writes, "in face of such testimony can we say that the book in which the climax is reached, in which the last discords of the _iliad_ are dissolved in chivalrous pity and regret, is not the work of the original poet, but of some homerid or rhapsodist?" mr. monro, with a struggle, finally voted for grammar, and other indications of lateness, against shelley and against his own sense of poetry. in a letter to me of may 1905, mr. monro sketched a theory that book ix. (without which he said that he deemed an _achilleis_ hardly possible) might be a _remanié_ representative of an earlier lay to the same general effect. some greek shakespeare, then, treated an older poem on the theme of book ix. as shakespeare treated old plays, namely, as a canvas to work over with a master's hand. probably mr. monro would not have gone _so_ far in the case of book xxiv., _the repentance_ of achilles. he thought it in too keen contrast with the brutality of book xxii. (obviously forgetting that in book xxiv. achilles is infinitely more brutal than in book xxii.), and thought it inconsistent with the refusal of achilles to grant burial at the prayer of the dying hector, and with his criminal treatment of the dead body of his chivalrous enemy. but in book xxiv. his ferocity is increased. mr. leaf shares mr. monro's view; but mr. leaf thinks that a greek audience forgave achilles, because he was doing "the will of heaven," and "fighting the great fight of hellenism against barbarism." [footnote: leaf, _iliad,_ vol.-ii. p. 429. 1902.] but the achzeans were not puritans of the sixteenth century! moreover, the trojans are as "hellenic" as the achzeans. they converse, clearly, in the same language. they worship the same gods. the achzeans cannot regard them (unless on account of the breach of truce, by no trojan, but an ally) as the covenanters regarded "malignants," their name for loyal cavaliers, whom they also styled "amalekites," and treated as samuel treated agag. the achaeans to whom homer sang had none of this sanguinary pharisaism. others must decide on the exact value and import of odyssean grammar as a test of lateness, and must estimate the probable amount of time required for the development of such linguistic differences as they find in the _odyssey_ and _iliad_. in undertaking this task they may compare the literary language of america as it was before 1860 and as it is now. the language of english literature has also been greatly modified in the last forty years, but our times are actively progressive in many directions; linguistic variations might arise more slowly in the greece of the epics. we have already shown, in the more appropriate instance of the _chancun de willame_, that considerable varieties in diction and metre occur in a single ms. of that poem, a ms. written probably within less than a century of the date of the poem's composition. we can also trace, in _remaniements_ of the _chanson de roland_, comparatively rapid and quite revolutionary variations from the oldest--the oxford--manuscript. rhyme is substituted for assonance; the process entails frequent modernisations, and yet the basis of thirteenth-century texts continues to be the version of the eleventh century. it may be worth the while of scholars to consider these parallels carefully, as regards the language and prosody of the odyssean books of the _iliad_, and to ask themselves whether the processes of alteration in the course of transmission, which we know to have occurred in the history of the old french, may not also have affected the _iliad_, though why the effect is mainly confined to four books remains a puzzle. it is enough for us to have shown that if odyssean varies from iliadic language, in all other respects the two poems bear the marks of the same age. meanwhile, a homeric scholar so eminent as mr. t. w. allen, says that "the linguistic attack upon their age" (that of the homeric poems) "may be said to have at last definitely failed, and archaeology has erected an apparently indestructible buttress for their defence." [footnote: _classical review, may_ 1906, p. 194.] chapter xiii the "doloneia" "iliad," book x. of all books in the [blank space] book x., called the _doloneia_, is most generally scouted and rejected. the book, in fact, could be omitted, and only a minutely analytic reader would perceive the lacuna. he would remark that in iliad, ix. 65-84, certain military preparations are made which, if we suppress book x., lead up to nothing, and that in _iliad_, xiv. 9-11, we find nestor with the shield of his son, thrasymedes, while thrasymedes has his father's shield, a fact not explained, though the poet certainly meant something by it. the explanation in both cases is found in book x., which may also be thought to explain why the achaeans, so disconsolate in book ix., and why agamemnon, so demoralised, so gaily assume the offensive in book xi. some ancient critics, scholiast t and eustathius, attributed the _doloneia_ to homer, but supposed it to have been a separate composition of his added to the _iliad_ by pisistratus. this merely proves that they did not find any necessity for the existence of the _doloneia_. mr. allen, who thinks that "it always held its present place," says, "the _doloneia_ is persistently written down." [footnote: _classical review_, may 1906, p. 194] to understand the problem of the _doloneia_, we must make a summary of its contents. in book ix. 65-84, at the end of the disastrous fighting of book viii, the achaeans, by nestor's advice, station an advanced guard of "_the young men_" between the fosse and wall; 700 youths are posted there, under meriones, the squire of idomeneus, and thrasymedes, the son of nestor. all this is preparation for book x., as mr. leaf remarks, [footnote: _companion_, p. 174.] though in any case an advanced guard was needed. their business is to remain awake, under arms, in case the trojans, who are encamped on the plain, attempt a night attack. at their station the young men will be under arms till dawn; they light fires and cook their provisions; the trojans also surround their own watchfires. the achaean chiefs then hold council, and agamemnon sends the embassy to achilles. the envoys bring back his bitter answer; and all men go to sleep in their huts, deeply discouraged, as even odysseus avowed. here the tenth book begins, and it is manifest that the poet is thoroughly well acquainted with the ninth book. without the arrangements made in the ninth book, and without the despairing situation of that book, his lay is impossible. it will be seen that critics suppose him, alternately, to have "quite failed to realise the conditions of life of the heroes of whom he sang" (that is, if certain lines are genuine), and also to be a peculiarly learned archaeologist and a valuable authority on weapons. he is addicted to introducing fanciful "touches of heroic simplicity," says mr. leaf, and is altogether a puzzling personage to the critics. the book opens with the picture of agamemnon, sleepless from anxiety, while the other chiefs, save menelaus, are sleeping. he "hears the music of the joyous trojan pipes and flutes" and sees the reflected glow of their camp-fires, we must suppose, for he could not see the fires themselves through the new wall of his own camp, as critics very wisely remark. he tears out his hair before zeus; no one else does so, in the _iliad_, but no one else is agamemnon, alone and in despair. he rises to consult nestor, throwing a lion's skin over his _chiton_, and grasping a spear. much noise is made about the furs, such as this lion's pelt, which the heroes, in book x., throw about their shoulders when suddenly aroused. that sportsmen like the heroes should keep the pelts of animals slain by them for use as coverlets, and should throw on one of the pelts when aroused in a hurry, is a marvellous thing to the critics. they know that fleeces were used for coverlets of beds (ix. 661), and pelts of wild animals, slain by anchises, cover his bed in the hymn to aphrodite. but the facts do not enlighten critics. yet no facts could be more natural. a scientific critic, moreover, never reflects that the poet is dealing with an unexampled situation--heroes wakened and called into the cold air in a night of dread, but not called to battle. thus reichel says: "the poet knows so little about true heroic costume that he drapes the princes in skins of lions and panthers, like giants.... but about a corslet he never thinks." [footnote: reichel, p.70.] the simple explanation is that the poet has not hitherto had to tell us about men who are called up, not to fight, on a night that must have been chilly. in war they do not wear skins, though paris, in archer's equipment, wears a pard's skin (iii. 17). naturally, the men throw over themselves their fur coverlets; but nestor, a chilly veteran, prefers a _chiton_ and a wide, double-folded, fleecy purple cloak. the cloak lay ready to his hand, for such cloaks were used as blankets (xxiv. 646; odyssey, iii. 349, 351; iv. 299; ii. 189). we hear more of such bed-coverings in the odyssey than in the merely because in the _odyssey_ we have more references to beds and to people in bed. that a sportsman may have (as many folk have now) a fur coverlet, and may throw it over him as a kind of dressing-gown or "bed-gown," is a simple circumstance which bewilders the critical mind and perplexed reichel. if the poet knew so little as reichel supposed his omission of corslets is explained. living in an age of corslets (seventh century), he, being a literary man, knew nothing about corslets, or, as he is also an acute archaeologist, he knew too much; he knew that they were not worn in the mycenaean prime, so he did not introduce them. the science of this remarkable ignoramus, in _this_ view, accounts for his being aware that pelts of animals were in vogue as coverlets, just as fur dressing-gowns were worn in the sixteenth century, and he introduces them precisely as he leaves corslets out, because he knows that pelts of fur were in use, and that, in the mycenaean prime, corslets were not worn. in speaking to nestor, agamemnon awakens sympathy: "me, of all the achaeans, zeus has set in toil and labour ceaselessly." they are almost the very words of charlemagne in the _chanson de roland: "deus, dist li reis, si peneuse est ma vie."_ the author of the _doloneia_ consistently conforms to the character of agamemnon as drawn in the rest of the _iliad_. he is over-anxious; he is demoralising in his fits of gloom, but all the burden of the host hangs on him--sipeneuse _est ma via_. to turn to higher things. menelaus, too, was awake, anxious about the argives, who risked their lives in his cause alone. he got up, put on a pard's skin and a bronze helmet (here the poet forgets, what he ought to have known, that no bronze helmets have been found in the mycenaean graves). menelaus takes a spear, and goes to look for agamemnon, whom he finds arming himself beside his ship. he discovers that agamemnon means to get nestor to go and speak to the advanced guard, as his son is their commander, and they will obey nestor. agamemnon's pride has fallen very low! he tells menelaus to waken the other chief with all possible formal courtesy, for, brutally rude when in high heart, at present agamemnon cowers to everybody. he himself finds nestor in bed, his _shield_, two spears, and helmet beside him, also his glittering _zoster_. his corslet is not named; perhaps the poet knew that the _zoster_, or broad metallic belt, had been evolved, but that the corslet had not been invented; or perhaps he "knows so little about the costume of the heroes" that he is unaware of the existence of corslets. nestor asks agamemnon what he wants; and agamemnon says that his is a toilsome life, that he cannot sleep, that his knees tremble, and that he wants nestor to come and visit the outposts. there is really nothing absurd in this. napoleon often visited his outposts in the night before waterloo, and cromwell rode along his lines all through the night before dunbar, biting his lips till the blood dropped on his linen bands. in all three cases hostile armies were arrayed within striking distance of each other, and the generals were careworn. nestor admits that it is an anxious night, and rather blames menelaus for not rousing the other chiefs; but agamemnon explains and defends his brother. nestor then puts on the comfortable cloak already described, and picks up a spear, [blank space] _in his quarters_. as for odysseus, he merely throws a shield over his shoulders. the company of diomede are sleeping with their heads on their shields. thence reichel (see "the shield") infers that the late poet of book x. gave them small ionian round bucklers; but it has been shown that no such inference is legitimate. their spears were erect by their sides, fixed in the ground by the _sauroter_, or butt-spike, used by the men of the late "warrior vase" found at mycenae. to arrange the spears thus, we have seen, was a point of drill that, in aristotle's time, survived among the illyrians. [footnote: _poetics_, xxv.] the practice is also alluded to in _iliad_, iii 135. during a truce "the tall spears are planted by their sides." the poet, whether ignorant or learned, knew that point of war, later obsolete in greece, but still extant in illyria. nestor aroused diomede, whose night apparel was the pelt of a lion; he took his spear, and they came to the outposts, where the men were awake, and kept a keen watch on all movements among the trojans. nestor praised them, and the princes, taking nestor's son, thrasymedes, and meriones with them, went out into the open in view of the trojan camp, sat down, and held a consultation. nestor asked if any one would volunteer to go as a spy among the trojans and pick up intelligence. his reward will be "a black ewe with her lamb at her foot," from their chiefs--"nothing like her for value"--and he will be remembered in songs at feasts, _or_ will be admitted to feasts and wine parties of the chiefs. [footnote: leaf, note on x. 215.] the proposal is very odd; what do the princes want with black ewes, while at feasts they always have honoured places? can nestor be thinking of sending out any brave swift-footed young member of the outpost party, to whom the reward would be appropriate? after silence, diomede volunteers to go, with a comrade, though this kind of work is very seldom undertaken in any army of any age by a chief, and by his remark about admission to wine parties it is clear that nestor was not thinking of a princely spy. many others volunteer, but agamemnon bids diomede choose his own companion, with a very broad hint not to take menelaus. _his_ death, agamemnon knows, would mean the disgraceful return of the host to greece; besides he is, throughout the _iliad_, deeply attached to his brother. the poet of book x., however late, knows the _iliad_ well, for he keeps up the uniform treatment of the character of the over-lord. as he knows the _iliad_ well, how can he be ignorant of the conditions of life of the heroes? how can he dream of "introducing a note of heroic simplicity" (mr. leaf's phrase), when he must be as well aware as we are of the way in which the heroes lived? we cannot explain the black ewes, if meant as a princely reward, but we do not know everything about homeric life. diomede chooses odysseus, "whom pallas athene loveth"; she was also the patroness of diomede himself, in books v., vi. as they are unarmed--all of the chiefs hastily aroused were unarmed, save for a spear there or a sword here--thrasymedes gives to diomede his two-edged sword, _his_ shield, and "a helm of bull's hide, without horns or crest, that is called a skull-cap (knap-skull), and keeps the heads of strong young men." all the advanced guard were young men, as we saw in book ix. 77. obviously, thrasymedes must then send back to camp, though we are not told it, for another shield, sword, and helmet, as he is to lie all night under arms. we shall hear of the shield later. meriones, who is an archer (xiii. 650), lends to odysseus his bow and quiver and a sword. he also gives him "a helm made of leather; and with many a thong it was stiffly wrought within, while without the white teeth of a boar of flashing tusks were arrayed, thick set on either side well and cunningly... ." here reichel perceives that the ignorant poet is describing a piece of ancient headgear represented in mycenaean art, while the boars' teeth were found by schliemann, to the number of sixty, in grave iv. at mycenae. each of them had "the reverse side cut perfectly flat, and with the borings to attach them to some other object." they were "in a veritable funereal armoury." the manner of setting the tusks on the cap is shown on an ivory head of a warrior from mycenae. [footnote: tsountas and manatt, 196-197.] reichel recognises that the poet's description in book x. is excellent, "_ebenso klar als eingehend_." he publishes another ivory head from spata, with the same helmet set with boars' tusks. [footnote: reichel, pp. 102-104] mr. leaf decides that this description by the poet, wholly ignorant of heroic costume, as reichel thinks him, must be "another instance of the archaic and archaeologising tendency so notable in book x." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. ii. p. 629.] at the same time, according to reichel and mr. leaf, the poet of book x. introduces the small round ionian buckler, thus showing his utter ignorance of the great mycenaean shield. the ignorance was most unusual and quite inexcusable, for any one who reads the rest of the _iliad_ (which the poet of book x. knew well) is aware that the homeric shields were huge, often covering body and legs. this fact the poet of book x. did not know, in reichel's opinion. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 575] how are we to understand this poet? he is such an erudite archaeologist that, in the seventh century, he knows and carefully describes a helmet of the mycenaean prime. did he excavate it? and had the leather interior lasted with the felt cap through seven centuries? or did he see a sample in an old temple of the mycenaean prime, or in a museum of his own period? or had he heard of it in a lost mycenaean poem? yet, careful as he was, so pedantic that he must have puzzled his seventh-century audience, who never saw such caps, the poet knew nothing of the shields and costumes of the heroes, though he might have found out all that is known about them in the then existing iliadic lays with which he was perfectly familiar--see his portrait of agamemnon. he was well aware that corslets were, in homeric poetry, anachronisms, for he gave nestor none; yet he fully believed, in his ignorance, that small ionian bucklers loveth; (which need the aid of corslets badly) were the only wear among the heroes! criticism has, as we often observe, no right to throw the first stone at the inconsistencies of homer. as we cannot possibly believe that one poet knew so much which his contemporaries did not know (and how, in the seventh century, could he know it?), and that he also knew so little, knew nothing in fact, we take our own view. the poet of book x. sings of _a_ fresh topic, a confused night of dread; of young men wearing the headgear which, he says, young men _do_ wear; of pelts of fur such as suddenly wakened men, roused, but not roused for battle, would be likely to throw over their bodies against the chill air. he describes things of his own day; things with which he is familiar. he is said to "take quite a peculiar delight in the minute description of dress and weapons." [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. p. 423.] we do not observe that he does describe weapons or shields minutely; but homer always loves to describe weapons and costume--scores of examples prove it--and here he happens to be describing such costume as he nowhere else has occasion to mention. by an accident of archaeological discovery, we find that there were such caps set with boars' tusks as he introduces. they had survived, for young men on night duty, into the poet's age. we really cannot believe that a poet of the seventh century had made excavations in mycenaean graves. if he did and put the results into his lay, his audience--not wearing boars' tusks--would have asked, "what nonsense is the man talking?" erhardt, remarking on the furs which the heroes throw over their shoulders when aroused, says that this kind of wrap is very late. it was peisander who, in the second half of the seventh century, clothed herakles in a lion's skin. peisander brought this costume into poetry, and the author of the _doloneia_ knew no better than to follow peisander. [footnote: _die enstehung der homerischen gedichte_, pp. 163-164.] the poet of the _doloneia_ was thus much better acquainted with peisander than with the homeric lays, which could have taught him that a hero would never wear a fur coverlet when aroused--not to fight--from slumber. yet he knew about leathern caps set with boars' tusks. he must have been an erudite excavator, but, in literature, a reader only of recent minor poetry. having procured arms, without corslets (_with_ corslets, according to carl robert)--whether, if they had none, because the poet knew that corslets were anachronisms, or because spies usually go as lightly burdened as possible--odysseus and diomede approach the trojan camp. the hour is the darkest hour before dawn. they hear, but do not see, a heron sent by athene as an omen, and pray to the goddess, with promise of sacrifice. in the trojan camp hector has called a council, and asked for a volunteer spy to seek intelligence among the achaeans. he offers no black ewes as a reward, but the best horses of the enemy. this allures dolon, son of a rich trojan, "an only son among five sisters," a poltroon, a weak lad, ugly, but swift of foot, and an enthusiastic lover of horses. he asks for the steeds of achilles, which hector swears to give him; and to be lightly clad he takes merely spear and bow and a cap of ferret skin, with the pelt of a wolf for covering. odysseus sees him approach; he and diomede lie down among the dead till dolon passes, then they chase him towards the achaean camp and catch him. he offers ransom, which before these last days of the war was often accepted. odysseus replies evasively, and asks for information. dolon, thinking that the bitterness of death is past, explains that only the trojans have watch-fires; the allies, more careless, have none. at the extreme flank of the host sleep the newly arrived thracians, under their king, rhesus, who has golden armour, and "the fairest horses that ever i beheld" (the ruling passion for horses is strong in dolon), "and the greatest, whiter than snow, and for speed like the winds." having learned all that he needs to know, diomede ruthlessly slays dolon. odysseus thanks athene, and hides the poor spoils of the dead, marking the place. they then creep into the dark camp of the sleeping thracians, and as diomede slays them odysseus drags each body aside, to leave a clear path for the horses, that they may not plunge and tremble when they are led forth, "for they were not yet used to dead men." no line in homer shows more intimate knowledge and realisation of horses and of war. odysseus drives the horses of rhesus out of the camp with the bow of meriones; he has forgotten to take the whip from the chariot. diomede, having slain king rhesus asleep, thinks whether he shall lift out the chariot (war chariots were very light) or drag it by the pole; but athene warns him to be going. he "springs upon the steeds," and they make for their camp. it is not clearly indicated whether they ride or drive (x., 5 i 3, 527-528, 541); but, suppose that they ride, are we to conclude that the fact proves "lateness"? the heroes always drive in homer, but it is inconceivable that they could not ride in cases of necessity, as here, if diomede has thought it wiser not to bring out the chariot and harness the horses. riding is mentioned in _iliad_, xv. 679, in a simile; again, in a simile, _odyssey_, v. 37 i. it is not the custom for heroes to ride; the chariot is used in war and in travelling, but, when there are horses and no chariot, men could not be so imbecile as not to mount the horses, nor could the poet be so pedantic as not to make them do so. the shields would cause no difficulty; they would be slung sideways, like the shields of knights in the early middle ages. the pair, picking up dolon's spoils as they pass, hurry back to the chiefs, where nestor welcomes them. the others laugh and are encouraged (to encourage them and his audience is the aim of the poet); while the pair go to diomede's quarters, wash off the blood and sweat from their limbs in the sea, and then "enter the polished baths," common in the _odyssey_, unnamed in the iliad. but on no other occasion in the iliad are we admitted to view this part of heroic toilette. nowhere else, in fact, do we accompany a hero to his quarters and his tub after the day's work is over. achilles, however, refuses to wash, after fighting, in his grief for patroclus, though plenty of water was being heated for the purpose, and it is to be presumed that a bath was ready for the water (_iliad_, xxiii. 40). see, too, for hector's bath, xxii. 444. the two heroes then refresh themselves; breakfast, in fact, and drink, as is natural. by this time the dawn must have been in the sky, and in book xi. men are stirring with the dawn. such is the story of book x. the reader may decide as to whether it is "_very_ late; barely homeric," or a late and deliberate piece of burlesque, [footnote: henry, _classical review_. march 1906.] or whether it is very homeric, though the whole set of situations--a night of terror, an anxious chief, a nocturnal adventure--are unexampled in the poem. the poet's audience of warriors must have been familiar with such situations, and must have appreciated the humorous, ruthless treatment of dolon, the spoiled only brother of five sisters. mr. monro admitted that dolon is shakespearian, but added, "too shakespearian for homer." one may as well say that agincourt, in henry v., is "too homeric for shakespeare." mr. monro argued that "the tenth book comes in awkwardly after the ninth." nitzsche thinks just the reverse. the patriotic warrior audience would delight in the _doloneia_ after the anguish of book ix.; would laugh with odysseus at the close of his adventure, and rejoice with the other achaeans (x. 505). "the introductory part of the book is cumbrous," says mr. monro. to us it is, if we wish to get straight to the adventure, just as the customary delays in book xix., before achilles is allowed to fight, are tedious to us. but the poet's audience did not necessarily share our tastes, and might take pleasure (as i do) in the curious details of the opening of book x. the poet was thinking of his audience, not of modern professors. "we hear no more of rhesus and his thracians." of rhesus there was no more to hear, and his people probably went home, like glenbuckie's stewarts after the mysterious death of their chief in amprior's house of leny before prestonpans (1745). glenbuckie was mysteriously pistolled in the night. "the style and tone is unlike that of the iliad ... it is rather akin to comedy of a rough farcical kind." but it was time for "comic relief." if the story of dolon be comic, it is comic with the practical humour of the sagas. in an isolated nocturnal adventure and massacre we cannot expect the style of an heroic battle under the sunlight. is the poet not to be allowed to be various, and is the scene of the porter in _macbeth_, "in style and tone," like the rest of the drama? (_macbeth_, act ii. sc. 3). here, of course, shakespeare indulges infinitely more in "comedy of a rough practical kind" than does the author of the _doloneia_. the humour and the cruelty do not exceed what is exhibited in many of the _gabes_, or insulting boasts of heroes over dead foes in other parts of the _iliad_; such as the taunting comparison of a warrior falling from his chariot to a diver after oysters, or as "one of the argives hath caught the spear in his flesh, and leaning thereon for a staff, methinks that he will go down within the house of hades" (xiv. 455-457). the _iliad_, like the sagas, is rich in this extremely practical humour. mr. leaf says that the book "must have been composed before the _iliad_ had reached its present form, for it cannot have been meant to follow on book ix. it is rather another case of a parallel rival to that book, coupled with it only in the final literary redaction," which mr. leaf dates in the middle of the sixth century. "the book must have been composed before the _iliad_ had reached its present form," [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 424.] it is not easy to understand this decision; for, as mr. leaf had previously written, about book ix. 60-68, "the posting of the watch is at least not necessary to the story, and it has a suspicious air of being merely a preparation for the next book, which is much later, and which turns entirely upon a visit to the sentinels." [footnote: _companion,_ p.174.] now a military audience would not have pardoned the poet of book ix. if, in the circumstances of defeat, with a confident enemy encamped within striking distance, he had not made the achaeans throw forth their outposts. the thing was inevitable and is not suspicious; but the poet purposely makes the advanced guard consist of young men under nestor's son and meriones. he needs them for book x. therefore the poet of book ix. is the poet of book x. preparing his effect in advance; or the poet of book x. is a man who cleverly takes advantage of book ix., or he composed his poem of "a night of terror and adventure," "in the air," and the editor of 540 b.c., having heard it recited and copied it out, went back to book ix. and inserted the advanced guard, under thrasymedes and meriones, to lead up to book x. on mr. leafs present theory, [footnote: iliad, vol. i. p.424.] book x., we presume, was meant, not to follow book ix., but to follow the end of book vii, being an alternative to book viii. (composed, he says, to lead up to book ix.) and book ix. but book vii. closes with the achaean refusal of the compromise offered by paris--the restoration of the property but not of the wife of menelaus. the trojans and achaeans feast all night; the trojans feast in the city. there is therefore no place here for book x. after book vii, and the achaeans cannot roam about all night, as they are feasting; nor can agamemnon be in the state of anxiety exhibited by him in book x. book x. could not exist without book ix., and _must_ have been "meant to follow on it." mr. leaf sees that, in his preface to book ix., [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 371.] "the placing of sentinels" (in book ix. 80, 84) "is needed as an introduction to book x. but has nothing to do with this book" (ix.). but, we have said, it was inevitable, given the new situation in book ix. (an achaean repulse, and the enemy camped in front), that an advanced guard must be placed, even if there proved to be no need of their services. we presume that mr. leaf's literary editor, finding that book x. existed and that the advanced guard was a necessity of its action, went back to book ix. and introduced an advanced guard of young men, with its captains, thrasymedes and meriones. even after this the editor had much to do, if book ix. originally exhibited agamemnon as not in terror and despair, as it now does. we need not throw the burden of all this work on the editor. as mr. leaf elsewhere writes, in a different mind, the tenth book "is obviously adapted to its present place in the _iliad_, for it assumes a moment when achilles is absent from the field, and when the greeks are in deep dejection from a recent defeat. these conditions are exactly fulfilled by the situation at the end of book ix." [footnote: _companion_, p. 190.] this is certainly the case. the tenth book could not exist without the ninth; yet mr. leaf's new opinion is that it "cannot have been meant to follow on book ix." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. 424.] he was better inspired when he held the precisely opposite opinion. dr. adolf kiene [footnote: die _epen des homer, zweiter theil,_ pp. 90-94. hanover, 1884.] accepts book xi. as originally composed to fill its present place in the _iliad._ he points out the despondency of the chiefs after receiving the reply of achilles, and supposes that even diomede (ix. 708) only urges agamemnon to "array before the ships thy folk and horsemen," for defensive battle. but, encouraged by the success of the night adventure, agamemnon next day assumes the offensive. to consider thus is perhaps to consider too curiously. but it is clear that the achaeans have been much encouraged by the events of book x., especially agamemnon, whose character, as kiene observes, is very subtly and consistently treated, and "lies near the poet's heart." this is the point which we keep urging. agamemnon's care for menelaus is strictly preserved in book x. nitzsche (i 897) writes, "between book ix. and book xi there is a gap; that gap the _doloneia_ fills: it must have been composed to be part of the _iliad_." but he thinks that the _doloneia_ has taken the place of an earlier lay which filled the gap. [footnote: die _echtheit der doloneia,_ p. 32. programme des k. k. staats gymnasium zu marburg, 1877.] that the book is never referred to later in the _iliad_, even if it be true, is no great argument against its authenticity. for when later references are made to book ix., they are dismissed as clever late interpolations. if the horses of rhesus took part, as they do not, in the sports at the funeral of patroclus, the passage would be called a clever interpolation: in fact, diomede had better horses, divine horses to run. however, it is certainly remarkable that the interpolation was not made by one of the interpolators of critical theory. meanwhile there is, we think, a reference to book x. in book xiv. [footnote: this was pointed out to me by mr. shewan, to whose great knowledge of homer i am here much indebted.] in _iliad_, xiv. 9-11, we read that nestor, in his quarters with the wounded machaon, on the day following the night of dolon's death, hears the cry of battle and goes out to see what is happening. "he took the well-wrought shield of his son, horse-taming thrasymedes, which was lying in the hut, all glistening with bronze, but _the son had the shield of his father_." why had thrasymedes the shield of his father? at about 3 a.m. before dawn the shield of nestor was lying beside him in his own bedroom (book x. 76), and at the same moment his son thrasymedes _was_ on outpost duty, and had his own shield with him (book ix. 81). when, then, did father and son exchange shields, and why? mr. leaf says, "it is useless to inquire why father and son had thus changed shields, as the scholiasts of course do." the scholiasts merely babble. homer, of course, meant _something_ by this exchange of shields, which occurred late in the night of book ix. or very early in the following day, that of books xi-xvi. let us follow again the sequence of events. on the night before the day when nestor had thrasymedes' shield and thrasymedes had nestor's, thrasymedes was sent out, with shield and all, in command of one of the seven companies of an advanced guard, posted between fosse and wall, in case of a camisade by the trojans, who were encamped on the plain (ix. 81). with him in command were meriones and five other young men less notable. they had supplies with them and whatever was needed: they cooked supper in bivouac. in the _doloneia_ the wakeful princes, after inspecting the advanced guard, go forward within view of the trojan ranks and consult. with them they take nestor's son, thrasymedes, and meriones (x. 196). the two young men, being on active service, are armed; the princes are not. diomede, having been suddenly roused out of sleep, with no intention to fight, merely threw on his dressing-gown, a lion's skin. nestor wore a thick, double, purple dressing-gown. odysseus had cast his shield about his shoulders. it was decided that odysseus and diomede should enter the trojan camp and "prove a jeopardy." diomede had no weapon but his spear; so thrasymedes, who is armed as we saw, lends him his bull's-hide cap, "that keeps the heads of stalwart youths," his sword (for that of diomede "was left at the ships"), and his shield. diomede and odysseus successfully achieve their adventure and return to the chiefs, where they talk with nestor; and then they go to diomede's hut and drink. the outposts remain, of course, at their stations. meanwhile, thrasymedes, having lent his shield to diomede, has none of his own. naturally, as he was to pass the night under arms, he would send to his father's quarters for the old man's shield, a sword, and a helmet. he would remain at his post (his men had provisions) till the general _reveillez_ at dawn, and would then breakfast at his post and go into the fray. nestor, therefore, missing his shield, would send round to diomede's quarters for the shield of thrasymedes, which had been lent overnight to diomede, would take it into the fight, and would bring it back to his own hut when he carried the wounded machaon thither out of the battle. when he arms to go out and seek for information, he picks up the shield of thrasymedes. nothing can be more obvious; the poet, being a man of imagination, not a professor, sees it all, and casually mentions that the son had the father's and the father had the son's shield. his audience, men of the sword, see the case as clearly as the poet does: only we moderns and the scholiasts, almost as modern as ourselves, are puzzled. it may also be argued, though we lay no stress on it, that in book xi. 312, when agamemnon has been wounded, we find odysseus and diomede alone together, without their contingents, because they have not separated since they breakfasted together, after returning from the adventure of book x., and thus they have come rather late to the field. they find the achaeans demoralised by the wounding of agamemnon, and they make a stand. "what ails us," asks odysseus, "that we forget our impetuous valour?" the passage appears to take up the companionship of odysseus and diomede, who were left breakfasting together at the end of book x. and are not mentioned till we meet them again in this scene of book xi., as if they had just come on the field. as to the linguistic tests of lateness "there are exceptionally numerous traces of later formation," says mr. monro; while fick, tout _contraire,_ writes, "clumsy ionisms are not common, and, as a rule, occur in these parts which on older grounds show themselves to be late interpolations." "the cases of agreement" (between fick and mr. monro), "are few, and the passages thus condemned are not more numerous in the _doloneia_ than in any average book." [footnote: jevons, _journal of hellenic studies_, vii. p. 302.] the six examples of "a post-homeric use of the article" do not seem so very post-homeric to an ordinary intelligence--parallels occur in book i.--and "perfects in [greek: ka] from derivative verbs" do not destroy the impression of antiquity and unity which is left by the treatment of character; by the celebrated cap with boars' tusks, which no human being could archaeologically reconstruct in the seventh century; and by the homeric vigour in such touches as the horses unused to dead men. as the _iliad_ certainly passed through centuries in which its language could not but be affected by linguistic changes, as it could not escape from _remaniements_, consciously or unconsciously introduced by reciters and copyists, the linguistic objections are not strongly felt by us. an unphilological reader of homer notes that duntzer thinks the _doloneia_ "older than the oldest portion of the odyssey," while gemoll thinks that the author of the _doloneia_. was familiar with the _odyssey_. [footnote: duntzer, _homer. abhanglungen_, p. 324. gemoll, _hermes_, xv. 557 ff.] meanwhile, one thing seems plain to us: when the author of book ix. posted the guards under thrasymedes, he was deliberately leading up to book x.; while the casual remark in book xiv. about the exchange of shields between father and son, nestor and thrasymedes, glances back at book x. and possibly refers to some lost and more explicit statement. it is not always remembered that, if things could drop into the interpolations, things could also drop out of the _iliad,_ causing _lacunae_, during the dark backward of its early existence. if the _doloneia_ be "barely homeric," as father browne holds, this opinion was not shared by the listeners or readers of the sixth century. the vase painters often illustrate the _doloneia;_ but it does not follow that "the story was fresh" because it was "popular," as mr. leaf suggests, and "was treated as public property in a different way" (namely, in a comic way) "from the consecrated early legends" (_iliad,_ ii 424, 425). the sixth century vase painters illustrated many passages in homer, not the _doloneia_ alone. the "comic way" was the ruthless humour of two strong warriors capturing one weak coward. much later, wild caricature was applied in vase painting to the most romantic scenes in the odyssey, which were "consecrated" enough. chapter xiv the interpolations of nestor that several of the passages in which nestor speaks are very late interpolations, meant to glorify pisistratus, himself of nestor's line, is a critical opinion to which we have more than once alluded. the first example is in _iliad,_ ii. 530-568. this passage "is meant at once to present nestor as the leading counsellor of the greek army, and to introduce the coming _catalogue_." [footnote: leaf, _iliad,_ vol. i. p. 70.] now the _catalogue_ "originally formed an introduction to the whole cycle." [footnote: ibid., vol. i. p. 87.] but, to repeat an earlier observation, surely the whole cycle was much later than the period of pisistratus and his sons; that is, the compilation of the homeric and cyclic poems into one body of verse, named "the cycle," is believed to have been much later. it is objected that nestor's advice in this passage, "separate thy warriors by tribes and clans" ([greek: phyla, phraetras]), "is out of place in the last year of the war"; but this suggestion for military reorganisation may be admitted as a mere piece of poetical perspective, like helen's description of the achaean chiefs in book iii, or nestor may wish to return to an obsolete system of clan regiments. the athenians had "tribes" and "clans," political institutions, and nestor's advice is noted as a touch of late attic influence; but about the nature and origin of these social divisions we know so little that it is vain to argue about them. the advice of nestor is an appeal to the clan spirit--a very serviceable military spirit, as the highlanders have often proved--but we have no information as to whether it existed in achaean times. nestor speaks as the aged lochiel spoke to claverhouse before killiecrankie. did the athenian army of the sixth century fight in clan regiments? the device seems to belong to an earlier civilisation, whether it survived in sixth century athens or not. it is, of course, notorious that tribes and clans are most flourishing among the most backward people, though they were welded into the constitution of athens. the passage, therefore, cannot with any certainty be dismissed as very late, for the words for "tribe" and "clan" could not be novel athenian inventions, the institutions designated being of prehistoric origin. nestor shows his tactics again in iv. 303-309, offers his "inopportune tactical lucubrations, doubtless under athenian (pisistratean) influence." the poet is here denied a sense of humour. that a veteran military polonius should talk as inopportunely about tactics as dugald dalgetty does about the sconce of drumsnab is an essential part of the humour of the character of nestor. this is what nestor's critics do not see; the inopportune nature of his tactical remarks is the point of them, just as in the case of the laird of drumthwacket, "that should be." scott knew little of homer, but coincided in the nestorian humour by mere congruity of genius. the pisistratidze must have been humourless if they did not see that the poet smiled as he composed nestor's speeches, glorifying old deeds of his own and old ways of fighting. he arrays his pylians with chariots in front, footmen in the rear. in the [blank space] the princely heroes dismounted to fight, the chariots following close behind them. [footnote: _iliad_, xi. 48-56.] in the same way during the hundred years' war the english knights dismounted and defeated the french chivalry till, under jeanne d'arc and la hire, the french learned the lesson, and imitated the english practice. on the other hand, egyptian wall-paintings show the egyptian chariotry advancing in neat lines and serried squadrons. according to nestor these had of old been the achaean tactics, and he preferred the old way. nestor's advice in book iv. is _not_ to dismount or break the line of chariots; these, he says, were the old tactics: "even so is the far better way; thus, moreover, did men of old time lay low cities and walls." there was to be no rushing of individuals from the ranks, no dismounting. nestor's were not the tactics of the heroes--they usually dismount and do single valiances; but nestor, commanding his local contingent, recommends the methods of the old school, [greek: hoi pretoroi]. what can be more natural and characteristic? the poet's meaning seems quite clear. he is not flattering pisistratus, but, with quiet humour, offers the portrait of a vain, worthy veteran. it is difficult to see how this point can be missed; it never was missed before nestor's speeches seemed serviceable to the pisistratean theory of the composition of the _iliad_. in his first edition mr. leaf regarded the interpolations as intended "to glorify nestor" without reference to pisistratus, whom mr. leaf did not then recognise as the master of a sycophantic editor. the passages are really meant to display the old man's habit of glorifying himself and past times. pisistratus could not feel flattered by passages intended to exhibit his ancestor as a conceited and inopportune old babbler. i ventured in 1896 to suggest that the interpolator was trying to please pisistratus, but this was said in a spirit of mockery. of all the characters in homer that of nestor is most familiar to the unlearned world, merely because nestor's is a "character part," very broadly drawn. the third interpolation of flattery to pisistratus in the person of nestor is found in vii. 125-160. the achaean chiefs are loath to accept the challenge of hector to single combat. only menelaus rises and arms himself, moved by the strong sense of honour which distinguishes a warrior notoriously deficient in bodily strength. agamemnon refuses to let him fight; the other peers make no movement, and nestor rebukes them. it is entirely in nature that he should fall back on his memory of a similar situation in his youth; when the arcadian champion, ereuthalion, challenged any prince of the pylians, and when "no man plucked up heart" to meet him except nestor himself. had there never been any pisistratus, any poet who created the part of a worthy and wordy veteran must have made nestor speak just as he does speak. ereuthalion "was the tallest and strongest of men that i have slain!" and nestor, being what he is, offers copious and interesting details about the armour of ereuthalion and about its former owners. the passage is like those in which the icelandic sagamen dwelt lovingly on the history of a good sword, or the maoris on the old possessors of an ancient jade _patu_. an objection is now taken to nestor's geography: he is said not to know the towns and burns of his own country. he speaks of the swift stream keladon, the streams of iardanus, and the walls of pheia. pheia "is no doubt the same as pheai" [footnote: monro, note on odyssey, xv. 297.] (odyssey, xv. 297), "but that was a maritime town not near arkadia. there is nothing known of a keladon or iardanus anywhere near it." now didymus (schol. a) "is said to have read [greek: phaeraes] for [greek: pheias]," following pherekydes. [footnote: leaf, _iliad_, vol. i. 308.] m. victor bérard, who has made an elaborate study of elian topography, says that "pheia is a cape, not a town," and adopts the reading "phera," the [greek: pherae] of the journey of telemachus, in the odyssey. he thinks that the [greek: pherae] of nestor is the aliphera of polybius, and believes that the topography of nestor and of the journey of telemachus is correct. the keladon is now the river or burn of saint isidore; the iardanus is at the foot of mount kaiapha. keladon has obviously the same sense as the gaelic altgarbh, "the rough and brawling stream." iardanus is also a stream in crete, and mr. leaf thinks it semitic--"_yarden_, from yarad to flow"; but the semites did not give the _yar_ to the _yarrow_ nor to the australian _yarra yarra_. the country, says m. bérard, is a network of rivers, burns, and rivulets; and we cannot have any certainty, we may add, as the same river and burn names recur in many parts of the same country; [footnote: bérard, _les phéniciens et l'odyssée,_ 108-113, 1902] many of them, in england, are plainly prae-celtic. while the correct geography may, on this showing, be that of homer, we cannot give up homer's claim to nestor's speech. as to nestor's tale about the armour of ereuthalion, it is manifest that the first owner of the armour of ereuthalion, namely are'ithous, "the maceman," so called because he had the singularity of fighting with an iron _casse-tête,_ as nestor explains (vii. 138-140), was a famous character in legendary history. he appears "as prince areithous, the maceman," father (or grand-father?) of an areithous slain by hector (vii. 8-10). in greece, it was not unusual for the grandson to bear the grandfather's name, and, if the maceman was grand-father of hector's victim, there is no chronological difficulty. the chronological difficulty, in any case, if hector's victim is the son of the maceman, is not at all beyond a poetic narrator's possibility of error in genealogy. if nestor's speech is a late interpolation, if its late author borrowed his vivid account of the maceman and his _casse-tête_ from the mere word "maceman" in vii. 9, he must be credited with a lively poetic imagination. few or none of these reminiscences of nestor are really "inapplicable to the context." here the context demands encouragement for heroes who shun a challenge. nestor mentions an "applicable" and apposite instance of similar want of courage, and, as his character demands, he is the hero of his own story. his brag, or _gabe,_ about "he was the tallest and strongest of all the men i ever slew," is deliciously in keeping, and reminds us of the college don who said of the czar, "he is the nicest emperor i ever met." the poet is sketching an innocent vanity; he is not flattering pisistratus. the next case is the long narrative of nestor to the hurried patroclus, who has been sent by achilles to bring news of the wounded machaon (xi. 604-702). nestor on this occasion has useful advice to give, namely, that achilles, if he will not fight, should send his men, under patroclus, to turn the tide of trojan victory. but the poet wishes to provide an interval of time and of yet more dire disaster before the return of patroclus to achilles. by an obvious literary artifice he makes nestor detain the reluctant patroclus with a long story of his own early feats of arms. it is a story of a "hot-trod," so called in border law; the eleians had driven a _creagh_ of cattle from the pylians, who pursued, and nestor killed the eleian leader, itymoneus. the speech is an achaean parallel to the border ballad of "jamie telfer of the fair dodhead," in editing which scott has been accused of making a singular and most obvious and puzzling blunder in the topography of his own sheriffdom of the forest. on scott's showing the scene of the raid is in upper ettrickdale, not, as critics aver, in upper teviotdale; thus the narrative of the ballad would be impossible. [footnote: in fact both sites on the two dodburns are impossible; the fault lay with the ballad-maker, not with scott.] the pisistratean editor is accused of a similar error. "no doubt he was an asiatic greek, completely ignorant of the peloponnesus." [footnote: _iliad_. note to xi. 756, and to the _catalogue_, ii. 615-617.] it is something to know that pisistratus employed an editor, or that his editor employed a collaborator who was an asiatic greek! meanwhile, nothing is less secure than arguments based on the _catalogue_. we have already shown how mr. leaf's opinions as to the date and historical merits of the _catalogue_ have widely varied, while m. bérard appears to have vindicated the topography of nestor. of the _catalogue_ mr. allen writes, "as a table, according to regions, of agamemnon's forces it bears every mark of venerable antiquity," showing "a state of things which never recurred in later history, and which no one had any interest to invent, or even the means for inventing." he makes a vigorous defence of the _catalogue,_ as regards the dominion of achilles, against mr. leaf. [footnote: _classical review,_ may 1906, pp. x94-201.] into the details we need not go, but it is not questions of homeric topography, obscure as they are, that can shake our faith in the humorous portrait of old nestor, or make us suppose that the sympathetic mockery of the poet is the sycophantic adulation of the editor to his statesman employer, pisistratus. if any question may be left to literary discrimination it is the authentic originality of the portrayal of nestor. chapter xv the comparative study of early epics though comparison is the method of science, the comparative study of the national poetry of warlike aristocracies, its conditions of growth and decadence, has been much neglected by homeric critics. sir richard jebb touched on the theme, and, after devoting four pages to a sketch of sanskrit, finnish, persian, and early teutonic heroic poetry and _saga,_ decided that "in our country, as in others, we fail to find any true parallel to the case of the homeric poems. these poems must be studied in themselves, without looking for aid, in this sense, to the comparative method." [footnote: _homer_, p. 135.] part of this conclusion seems to us rather hasty. in a brief manual sir richard had not space for a thorough comparative study of old heroic poetry at large. his quoted sources are: for india, lassen; for france, mr. saintsbury's short history of _french literature_ (sixteen pages on this topic), and a work unknown to me, by "m. paul"; for iceland he only quoted _the encyclopedia britannica_ (mr. edmund gosse); for germany, lachmann and bartsch; for the finnish _kalewala,_ the _encyclopedia britannica_ (mr. sime and mr. keltie); and for england, a _primer of english literature_ by mr. stopford brooke. these sources appear less than adequate, and celtic heroic romance is entirely omitted. a much deeper and wider comparative criticism of early heroic national poetry is needed, before any one has a right to say that the study cannot aid our critical examination of the homeric problem. many peoples have passed through a stage of culture closely analogous to that of achaean society as described in the _iliad_ and odyssey. every society of this kind has had its ruling military class, its ancient legends, and its minstrels who on these legends have based their songs. the similarity of human nature under similar conditions makes it certain that comparison will discover useful parallels between the poetry of societies separated in time and space but practically identical in culture. it is not much to the credit of modern criticism that a topic so rich and interesting has been, at least in england, almost entirely neglected by homeric scholars. meanwhile, it is perfectly correct to say, as sir richard observes, that "we fail to find any true parallel to the case of the homeric poems," for we nowhere find the legends of an heroic age handled by a very great poet--the greatest of all poets--except in the _iliad_ and _odyssey_. but, on the other hand, the critics refuse to believe that, in the _iliad_ and _odyssey,_ we possess the heroic achaean legends handled by one great poet. they find a composite by many hands, good and bad, and of many ages, they say; sometimes the whole composition and part of the poems are ascribed to a late _littérateur_. now to that supposed state of things we do find several "true parallels," in germany, in finland, in ireland. but the results of work by these many hands in many ages are anything but "a true parallel" to the results which lie before us in the _iliad_ and _odyssey_. where the processes of composite authorship throughout many _ages_ certainly occur, as in germany and ireland, there we find no true parallel to the homeric poems. it follows that, in all probability, no such processes as the critics postulate produced the _iliad_ and odyssey, for where the processes existed, beyond doubt they failed egregiously to produce the results. sir richard's argument would have been logical if many efforts by many hands, in many ages, in england, finland, ireland, iceland, and germany did actually produce true parallels to the achaean epics. they did not, and why not? simply because these other races had no homer. all the other necessary conditions were present, the legendary material, the heroic society, the court minstrels, all--except the great poet. in all the countries mentioned, except finland, there existed military aristocracies with their courts, castles, and minstrels, while the minstrels had rich material in legendary history and in myth, and _märchen_, and old songs. but none of the minstrels was adequate to the production of an english, german, or irish _iliad_ or _odyssey_, or even of a true artistic equivalent in france. we have tried to show that the critics, rejecting a homer, have been unable to advance any adequate hypothesis to account for the existence of the _iliad_ and _odyssey_. now we see that, where such conditions of production as they postulate existed but where there was no great epic genius, they can find no true parallels to the epics. their logic thus breaks down at both ends. it may be replied that in non-greek lands one condition found in greek society failed: the succession of a reading age to an age of heroic listeners. but this is not so. in france and germany an age of readers duly began, but they did not mainly read copies of the old heroic poems. they turned to lyric poetry, as in greece, and they recast the heroic songs into modern and popular forms in verse and prose, when they took any notice of the old heroic poems at all. one merit of the greek epics is a picture of "a certain phase of early civilisation," and that picture is "a naturally harmonious whole," with "unity of impression," says sir richard jebb. [footnote: homer, p. 37.] certainly we can find no true parallel, on an homeric scale, to this "harmonious picture" in the epics of germany and england or in the early literature of ireland. sir richard, for england, omits notice of _beowulf_; but we know that _beowulf_, a long heroic poem, is a mass of anachronisms--a heathen legend in a christian setting. the hero, that great heathen champion, has his epic filled full of christian allusions and christian morals, because the clerical redactor, in christian england, could not but intrude these things into old pagan legends evolved by the continental ancestors of our race. he had no "painful anxiety," like the supposed ionic continuators of the achaean poems (when they are not said to have done precisely the reverse), to preserve harmony of ancient ideas. such archaeological anxieties are purely modern. if we take the _nibelungenlied_, [footnote: see chapter on the _nibelungenlied_ in homer _and the epic_, pp. 382-404.] we find that it is a thing of many rehandlings, even in existing manuscripts. for example, the greeks clung to the hexameter in homer. not so did the germans adhere to old metres. the poem that, in the oldest ms., is written in assonances, in later mss. is reduced to regular rhymes and is retouched in many essential respects. the matter of the _nibelungenlied_ is of heathen origin. we see the real state of heathen affairs in the icelandic versions of the same tale, for the icelanders were peculiar in preserving ancient lays; and, when these were woven into a prose saga, the archaic and heathen features were retained. had the post-christian prose author of the _volsunga_ been a great poet, we might find in his work a true parallel to the _iliad_. but, though he preserves the harmony of his picture of pre-christian princely life (save in the savage beginnings of his story), he is not a poet; so the true parallel to the greek epic fails, noble as is the saga in many passages. in the german _nibelungenlied_ all is modernised; the characters are christian, the manners are chivalrous, and _märchen_ older than homer are forced into a wandering mediaeval chronicle-poem. the germans, in short, had no early poet of genius, and therefore could not produce a true parallel to _iliad_ or odyssey. the mediaeval poets, of course, never dreamed of archaeological anxiety, as the supposed ionian continuators are sometimes said to have done, any more than did the french and late welsh handlers of the ancient celtic arthurian materials. the late german _bearbeiter_ of the _nibelungenlied_ has no idea of unity of plot--_enfin_, germany, having excellent and ancient legendary material for an epic, but producing no parallel to _iliad_ and odyssey, only proves how absolutely essential a homer was to the greek epics. "if any inference could properly be drawn from the edda" (the icelandic collection of heroic lays), says sir richard jebb, "it would be that short separate poems on cognate subjects can long exist as a collection _without_ coalescing into such an artistic whole as the iliad or the odyssey." [footnote: homer, p. 33.] it is our own argument that sir richard states. "short separate poems on cognate subjects" can certainly co-exist for long anywhere, but they cannot automatically and they cannot by aid of an editor become a long epic. nobody can stitch and vamp them into a poem like the _iliad_ or odyssey. to produce a poem like either of these a great poetic genius must arise, and fuse the ancient materials, as hephaestus fused copper and tin, and then cast the mass into a mould of his own making. a small poet may reduce the legends and lays into a very inartistic whole, a very inharmonious whole, as in the _nibelungenlied_, but a controlling poet, not a mere redactor or editor, is needed to perform even that feat. where a man who is not a poet undertakes to produce the coalescence, as dr. lönnrot (1835-1849) did in the case of the peasant, not courtly, lays of finland, he "fails to prove that mere combining and editing can form an artistic whole out of originally distinct songs, even though concerned with closely related themes," says sir richard jebb. [footnote: homer, p. 134-135.] this is perfectly true; much as lönnrot botched and vamped the finnish lays he made no epic out of them. but, as it is true, how did the late athenian drudge of pisistratus succeed where lönnrot failed? "in the dovetailing of the _odyssey_ we see the work of one mind," says sir richard. [footnote: homer, p. 129.] this mind cannot have been the property of any one but a great poet, obviously, as the _odyssey_ is confessedly "an artistic whole." consequently the disintegrators of the odyssey, when they are logical, are reduced to averring that the poem is an exceedingly inartistic whole, a whole not artistic at all. while mr. leaf calls it "a model of skilful construction," wilamowitz mollendorff denounces it as the work of "a slenderly-gifted botcher," of about 650 b.c., a century previous to mr. leaf's athenian editor. thus we come, after all, to a crisis in which mere literary appreciation is the only test of the truth about a work of literature. the odyssey is an admirable piece of artistic composition, or it is the very reverse. blass, mr. leaf, sir richard jebb, and the opinion of the ages declare that the composition is excellent. a crowd of german critics and father browne, s.j., hold that the composition is feeble. the criterion is the literary taste of each party to the dispute. kirchhoff and wilamowitz möllendorff see a late bad patchwork, where mr. leaf, sir richard jebb, blass, wolf, and the verdict of all mankind see a masterpiece of excellent construction. the world has judged: the _odyssey_ is a marvel of construction: therefore is not the work of a late botcher of disparate materials, but of a great early poet. yet sir richard jebb, while recognising the _odyssey_ as "an artistic whole" and an harmonious picture, and recognising lönnrot's failure "to prove that mere combining and editing can form an artistic whole out of originally distinct songs, even though concerned with closely related themes," thinks that kirchhoff has made the essence of his theory of late combination of distinct strata of poetical material from different sources and periods, in the _odyssey_, "in the highest degree probable." [footnote: homer, p. 131.] it is, of course, possible that mr. leaf, who has not edited the _odyssey,_ may now, in deference to his belief in the pisistratean editor, have changed his opinion of the merits of the poem. if the _odyssey,_ like the _iliad_, was, till about 540 b.c., a chaos of lays of all ages, variously known in various _répertoires_ of the rhapsodists, and patched up by the pisistratean editor, then of two things one--either mr. leaf abides by his enthusiastic belief in the excellency of the composition, or he does not. if he does still believe that the composition of the _odyssey_ is a masterpiece, then the pisistratean editor was a great master of construction. if he now, on the other hand, agrees with wilamowitz möllendorff that the _odyssey_ is cobbler's work, then his literary opinions are unstable. chapter xvi homer and the french mediaeval epics sir richard jebb remarks, with truth, that "before any definite solution of the homeric problem could derive scientific support from such analogies" (with epics of other peoples), "it would be necessary to show that the particular conditions under which the homeric poems appear in early greece had been reproduced with sufficient closeness elsewhere." [footnote: homer, pp. 131, 132.] now we can show that the particular conditions under which the homeric poems confessedly arose were "reproduced with sufficient closeness elsewhere," except that no really great poet was elsewhere present. this occurred among the germanic aristocracy, "the franks of france," in the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries of our era. the closeness of the whole parallel, allowing for the admitted absence in france of a very great and truly artistic poet, is astonishing. we have first, in france, answering to the achaean aristocracy, the frankish noblesse of warriors dwelling in princely courts and strong castles, dominating an older population, owing a practically doubtful fealty to an over-lord, the king, passing their days in the chace, in private war, or in revolt against the over-lord, and, for all literary entertainment, depending on the recitations of epic poems by _jongleurs_, who in some cases are of gentle birth, and are the authors of the poems which they recite. "this national poetry," says m. gaston paris, "was born and mainly developed among the warlike class, princes, lords, and their courts.... at first, no doubt, some of these men of the sword themselves composed and chanted lays" (like achilles), "but soon there arose a special class of poets ... they went from court to court, from castle ... later, when the townsfolk began to be interested in their chants, they sank a degree, and took their stand in public open places ..." [footnote: _literature française au moyen age_, pp. 36, 37. 1898.] in the _iliad_ we hear of no minstrels in camp: in the _odyssey_ a prince has a minstrel among his retainers--demodocus, at the court of phaeacia; phemius, in the house of odysseus. in ionia, when princes had passed away, rhapsodists recited for gain in marketplaces and at fairs. the parallel with france is so far complete. the french national epics, like those of the achaeans, deal mainly with legends of a long past legendary age. to the french authors the greatness and the fortunes of the emperor charles and other heroic heads of great houses provide a theme. the topics of song are his wars, and the prowess and the quarrels of his peers with the emperor and among themselves. these are seen magnified through a mist of legend; saracens are substituted for gascon foes, and the great charles, so nobly venerable a figure in the oldest french epic (the _chanson de roland, circ._ 1050-1070 in its earliest extant form), is more degraded, in the later epics, than agamemnon himself. the "machinery" of the gods in homer is replaced by the machinery of angels, but the machinery of dreams is in vogue, as in the iliad and _odyssey_. the sources are traditional and legendary. we know that brief early lays of charles and other heroes had existed, and they may have been familiar to the french epic poets, but they were not merely patched into the epics. the form of verse is not ballad-like, but a series of _laisses_ of decasyllabic lines, each _laisse_ presenting one assonance, not rhyme. as time went on, rhyme and alexandrine lines were introduced, and the old epics were expanded, altered, condensed, _remaniés_, with progressive changes in taste, metre, language, manners, and ways of life. finally, an age of cyclic poems began; authors took new characters, whom they attached by false genealogies to the older heroes, and they chanted the adventures of the sons of the former heroes, like the cyclic poet who sang of the son of odysseus by circe. all these conditions are undeniably "true parallels" to "the conditions under which the homeric poems appeared." the only obvious point of difference vanishes if we admit, with sir richard jebb and m. salomon reinach, the possibility of the existence of written texts in the greece of the early iron age. we do not mean texts prepared for a _reading_ public. in france such a public, demanding texts for reading, did not arise till the decadence of the epic. the oldest french texts of their epics are small volumes, each page containing some thirty lines in one column. such volumes were carried about by the _jongleurs_, who chanted their own or other men's verses. they were not in the hands of readers. [footnote: _épopées françaises_, léon gautier, vol. i. pp. 226-228. 1878.] an example of an author-reciter, jendeus de brie (he was the maker of the first version of the _bataille loquifer_, twelfth century) is instructive. of jendeus de brie it is said that "he wrote the poem, kept it very carefully, taught it to no man, made much gain out of it in sicily where he sojourned, and left it to his son when he died." similar statements are made in _renaus de montauban_ (the existing late version is of the thirteenth century) about huon de villeneuve, who would not part with his poem for horses or furs, or for any price, and about other poets. [footnote: _épopées françaises, léon gautier_, vol. i. p. 215, note i.] these early _jongleurs_ were men of position and distinction; their theme was the _gestes_ of princes; they were not under the ban with which the church pursued vulgar strollers, men like the greek rhapsodists. pindar's story that homer wrote the _cypria_ [footnote: _pindari opera_, vol. iii. p. 654. boeckh.] and gave the copy, as the dowry of his daughter, to stasinus who married her, could only have arisen in greece in circumstances exactly like those of jendeus de brie. jendeus lived on his poem by reciting it, and left it to his son when he died. the story of homer and stasinus could only have been invented in an age when the possession of the solitary text of a poem was a source of maintenance to the poet. this condition of things could not exist, either when there were no written texts or when such texts were multiplied to serve the wants of a reading public. again, a poet in the fortunate position of jendeus would not teach his epic in a "school" of reciters unless he were extremely well paid. in later years, after his death, his poem came, through copies good or bad, into circulation. late, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we hear of a "school" of _jongleurs_ at beauvais. in lent they might not ply their profession, so they gathered at beauvais, where they could learn _cantilenae_, new lays. [footnote: _épopées françaises_, léon gautier, vol. ii. pp. 174, 175.] but by that time the epic was decadent and dying? the audiences of the _jongleurs_, too, were no longer, by that time, what they had been. the rich and great, now, had library copies of the epics; not small _jongleurs'_ copies, but folios, richly illuminated and bound, with two or three columns of matter on each page. [footnote: ibid., vol. i. p. 228. see, too, photographs of an illuminated, double-columned library copy in _la chancun de willame_., london, 1903.] the age of recitations from a text in princely halls was ending or ended; the age of a reading public was begun. the earlier condition of the _jongleur_ who was his own poet, and carefully guarded his copyright in spite of all temptations to permit the copying of his ms., is regarded by sir richard jebb as quite a possible feature of early greece. he thinks that there was "no wide circulation of writings by numerous copies for a reading public" before the end of the fifth century b.c. as greek mercenaries could write, and write well, in the seventh to sixth centuries, i incline to think that there may then, and earlier, have been a reading public. however, long before that a man might commit his poems to writing. "wolf allows that some men did, as early at least as 776 b.c. the verses might never be read by anybody except himself" (the author) "or those to whom he privately bequeathed them" (as jendeus de brie bequeathed his poem to his son), "but his end would have been gained." [footnote: _homer_, p. 113.] recent discoveries as to the very early date of linear non-phoenician writing in crete of course increase the probability of this opinion, which is corroborated by the story of the _cypria_, given as a dowry with the author's daughter. thus "the particular conditions under which the homeric poems appeared" "been reproduced with sufficient closeness" in every respect, with surprising closeness, in the france of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. the social conditions are the same; the legendary materials are of identical character; the method of publication by recitation is identical; the cyclic decadence occurs in both cases, the _monomanie cyclique_. in the greece of homer we have the four necessary conditions of the epic, as found by m. léon gautier in mediaeval france. we have:-(1) an uncritical age confusing history by legend. (2) we have a national _milieu_ with religious uniformity. (3) we have poems dealing with- "old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago." (4) we have representative heroes, the over-lord, and his peers or paladins. [footnote: _épopées françaises_, léon gautier, vol. i. pp. 6-9] it may be added that in greece, as in france, some poets adapt into the adventures of their heroes world-old _märchen_, as in the odyssey, and in the cycle of the parents of charles. in the french, as in the greek epics, we have such early traits of poetry as the textual repetition of speeches, and the recurring epithets, "swift-footed achilles," "charles of the white beard," "blameless heroes" (however blamable). ladies, however old, are always "of the clear face." thus the technical manners of the french and greek epics are closely parallel; they only differ in the exquisite art of homer, to which no approach is made by the french poets. the french authors of epic, even more than homer, abound in episodes much more distracting than those of the _iliad_. of blood and wounds, of course, both the french and the greek are profuse: they were writing for men of the sword, not for modern critics. indeed, the battle pieces of france almost translate those of homer. the achaean "does on his goodly corslet"; the french knight "_sur ses espalles son halberc li colad_." the achaean, with his great sword, shears off an arm at the shoulder. the french knight-"_trenchad le braz, parmi leschine sun grant espee li passe_." the huge shield of aias becomes _cele grant targe duble_ in france, and the warriors boast over their slain in france, as in the _iliad_. in france, as in greece, a favourite epic theme was "the wrath" of a hero, of achilles, of roland, of ganelon, of odysseus and achilles wrangling at a feast to the joy of agamemnon, "glad that the bravest of his peers were at strife." [footnote: odyssey, viii. 75-7s [sic].] of all the many parallels between the greek and french epics, the most extraordinary is the coincidence between charles with his peers and agamemnon with his princes. the same historical conditions occurred, at an interval of more than two thousand years. agamemnon is the bretwalda, the over-lord, as mr. freeman used to say, of the achaeans: he is the suzerain. charles in the french epics holds the same position, but the french poets regard him in different lights. in the earliest epic, the _chanson_ de roland, a divinity doth hedge the famous emperor, whom jeanne d'arc styled "st. charlemagne." he was, in fact, a man of thirty-seven at the date of the disaster of roncesvaux, where roland fell (778 a.d.). but in the tradition that has reached the poet of the _chanson_ he is a white-bearded warrior, as vigorous as he is venerable. as he rules by advice of his council, he bids them deliberate on the proposals of the paynim king, marsile--to accept or refuse them. roland, the counterpart of achilles in all respects (oliver is his patroclus), is for refusing: ganelon appears to have the rest with him when he speaks in favour of peace and return to france out of spain. so, in the _iliad_ (ii.), the achaeans lend a ready ear to agamemnon when he proposes the abandonment of the siege of troy. each host, french and achaean, is heartily homesick. ganelon's advice prevailing, it is necessary to send an envoy to the saracen court. it is a dangerous mission; other envoys have been sent and been murdered. the peers, however, volunteer, beginning with the aged naismes, the nestor of the franks. his offer is not accepted, nor are those of oliver, roland, and turpin. roland then proposes that ganelon shall be sent; and hence arises the wrath of ganelon, which was the ruin of roland and the peers who stood by him. the warriors attack each other in speeches of homeric fury. charles preserves his dignity, and ganelon departs on his mission. he deliberately sells himself, and seals the fate of the peers whom he detests: the surprise of the rearguard under roland, the deadly battle, and the revenge of charles make up the rest of the poem. not even in victory is charles allowed repose; the trumpet again summons him to war. he is of those whom heaven has called to endless combat- "their whole lives long to be winding skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of them perish," in the words of diomede. such is the picture of the imperial charles in one of the oldest of the french epics. the heart of the poet is with the aged, but unbroken and truly imperial, figure of st. charlemagne--wise, just, and brave, a true "shepherd of the people," regarded as the conqueror of all the known kingdoms of the world. he is, among his fierce paladins, like "the conscience of a knight among his warring members." "the greatness of charlemagne has entered even into his name;" but as time went on and the feudal princes began the long struggle against the french king, the poets gratified their patrons by degrading the character of the emperor. they created a second type of charles, and it is the second type that on the whole most resembles the agamemnon of the _iliad._ we ask why the widely ruling lord of golden mycenae is so skilfully and persistently represented as respectable, indeed, by reason of his office, but detestable, on the whole, in character? the answer is that just as the second type of charles is the result of feudal jealousies of the king, so the character of agamemnon reflects the princely hatreds of what we may call the feudal age of greece. the masterly portrait of agamemnon could only have been designed to win the sympathies of feudal listeners, princes with an over-lord whom they cannot repudiate, for whose office they have a traditional reverence, but whose power they submit to with no good will, and whose person and character some of them can barely tolerate. [blank space] _an historical unity._ the poem deals with what may be called a feudal society, and the attitudes of the achaean bretwalda and of his peers are, from beginning to end of the _iliad_ and in every book of it, those of the peers and king in the later _chansons de geste_. returning to the decadent charles of the french epics, we lay no stress on the story of his incest with his sister, gilain, "whence sprang roland." the house of thyestes, whence agamemnon sprang, is marked by even blacker legends. the scandal is mythical, like the same scandal about the king arthur, who in romance is so much inferior to his knights, a reflection of feudal jealousies and hatreds. in places the reproaches hurled by the peers at charles read like paraphrases of those which the achaean princes cast at agamemnon. even naismes, the nestor of the french epics, cries: "it is for you that we have left our lands and fiefs, our fair wives and our children ... but, by the apostle to whom they pray in rome, were it not that we should be guilty before god we would go back to sweet france, and thin would be your host." [footnote: _chevalerie ogier_, 1510-1529. _épopées françaises_, léon gautier, vol. iii. pp. 156-157.] in the lines quoted we seem to hear the voice of the angered achilles: "we came not hither in our own quarrel, thou shameless one, but to please thee! but now go i back to phthia with my ships--the better part." [footnote: _iliad_, i. 158-169.] agamemnon answers that zeus is on his side, just as even the angry naismes admits that duty to god demands obedience to charles. there cannot be parallels more close and true than these, between poems born at a distance from each other of more than two thousand years, but born in similar historical conditions. in guide _bourgogne,_ a poem of the twelfth century, ogier cries, "they say that charlemagne is the conqueror of kingdoms: they lie, it is roland who conquers them with oliver, naismes of the long beard, and myself. as to charles, he eats." compare achilles to agamemnon, "thou, heavy with wine, with dog's eyes and heart of deer, never hast thou dared to arm thee for war with the host ..." [footnote: _iliad_, i. 227, 228. _gui de bourgogne_, pp. 37-41.] it is achilles or roland who stakes his life in war and captures cities; it is agamemnon or charles who camps by the wine. charles, in the _chanson de saisnes_, abases himself before herapois, even more abjectly than agamemnon in his offer of atonement to achilles. [footnote: _épopées françaises_, léon gautier, vol. iii. p. 158.] charles is as arrogant as agamemnon: he strikes roland with his glove, for an uncommanded victory, and then he loses heart and weeps as copiously as the penitent agamemnon often does when he rues his arrogance. [footnote: _entrée en espagne_.] the poet of the _iliad_ is a great and sober artist. he does not make agamemnon endure the lowest disgraces which the latest french epic poets heap on charles. but we see how close is the parallel between agamemnon and the charles of the decadent type. both characters are reflections of feudal jealousy of the over-lord; both reflect real antique historical conditions, and these were the conditions of the achaeans in europe, not of the ionians in asia. the treatment of agamemnon's character is harmonious throughout. it is not as if in "the original poem" agamemnon were revered like st. charlemagne in the _chanson de roland_, and in the "later" parts of the _iliad_ were reduced to the contemptible estate of the charles of the decadent _chanson de geste_. in the _iliad_ agamemnon's character is consistently presented from beginning to end, presented, i think, as it could only be by a great poet of the feudal achaean society in europe. the ionians--"democratic to the core," says mr. leaf--would either have taken no interest in the figure of the over-lord, or would have utterly degraded him below the level of the charles of the latest _chansons_. or the late rhapsodists, in their irresponsible lays, would have presented a wavering and worthless portrait. the conditions under which the _chansons_ arose were truly parallel to the conditions under which the homeric poems arose, and the poems, french and achaean, are also true parallels, except in genius. the french have no homer: _cared vate sacro_. it follows that a homer was necessary to the evolution of the greek epics. it may, perhaps, be replied to this argument that our _iliad_ is only a very late _remaniement_, like the fourteenth century _chansons de geste_, of something much earlier and nobler. but in france, in the age of _remaniement_, even the versification had changed from assonance to rhyme, from the decasyllabic line to the alexandrine in the decadence, while a plentiful lack of seriousness and a love of purely fanciful adventures in fairyland take the place of the austere spirit of war. ladies "in a coming on humour" abound, and charles is involved with his paladins in _gauloiseries_ of a rabelaisian cast. the french language has become a new thing through and through, and manners and weapons are of a new sort; but the high seriousness of the _iliad_ is maintained throughout, except in the burlesque battle of the gods: the versification is the stately hexameter, linguistic alterations are present, extant, but inconspicuous. that the armour and weapons are uniform in character throughout we have tried to prove, while the state of society and of religion is certainly throughout harmonious. our parallel, then, between the french and the greek national epics appears as perfect as such a thing can be, surprisingly perfect, while the great point of difference in degree of art is accounted for by the existence of an achaean poet of supreme genius. not such, certainly, were the composers of the cyclic poems, men contemporary with the supposed later poets of the _iliad_. chapter xvii conclusion the conclusion at which we arrive is that the _iliad_, as a whole, is the work of one age. that it has reached us without interpolations and _lacunae_ and _remaniements_ perhaps no person of ordinary sense will allege. but that the mass of the epic is of one age appears to be a natural inference from the breakdown of the hypotheses which attempt to explain it as a late mosaic. we have also endeavoured to prove, quite apart from the failure of theories of expansion and compilation, that the _iliad_ presents an historical unity, unity of character, unity of customary law, and unity in its archaeology. if we are right, we must have an opinion as to how the epic was preserved. if we had evidence for an homeric school, we might imagine that the epic was composed by dint of memory, and preserved, like the sanskrit hymns of the rig veda, and the hymns of the maoris, the zuñis, and other peoples in the lower or middle stage of barbarism, by the exertions and teaching of schools. but religious hymns and mythical hymns--the care of a priesthood--are one thing; a great secular epic is another. priests will not devote themselves from age to age to its conservation. it cannot be conserved, with its unity of tone and character, and, on the whole, even of language, by generations of paid strollers, who recite new lays of their own, as well as any old lays that they may remember, which they alter at pleasure. we are thus driven back to the theory of early written texts, not intended to meet the wants of a reading public, but for the use of the poet himself and of those to whom he may bequeath his work. that this has been a method in which orally published epics were composed and preserved in a non-reading age we have proved in our chapter on the french chansons _de geste_. unhappily, the argument that what was done in mediaeval france might be done in sub-mycenaean greece, is based on probabilities, and these are differently estimated by critics of different schools. all seems to depend on each individual's sense of what is "likely." in that case science has nothing to make in the matter. nitzsche thought that writing might go back to the time of homer. mr. monro thought it "probable enough that writing, even if known at the time of homer, was not used for literary purposes." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. p. xxxv.] sir richard jebb, as we saw, took a much more favourable view of the probability of early written texts. m. salomon reinach, arguing from the linear written clay tablets of knossos and from a knossian cup with writing on it in ink, thinks that there may have existed whole "minoan" libraries--manuscripts executed on perishable materials, palm leaves, papyrus, or parchment. [footnote: _l'anthropologie_, vol. xv, pp. 292, 293.] mr. leaf, while admitting that "writing was known in some form through the whole period of epic development," holds that "it is in the highest degree unlikely that it was ever employed to form a standard text of the epic or any portion of it.... at best there was a continuous tradition of those portions of the poems which were especially popular ..." [footnote: _iliad_, vol. i. pp. xvi., xvii.] father browne dates the employment of writing for the preservation of the epic "from the sixth century onwards." [footnote: _handbook of homeric study_, p. 134.] he also says that "it is difficult to suppose that the mycenaeans, who were certainly in contact with this form of writing" (the cretan linear), "should not have used it much more freely than our direct evidence warrants us in asserting." he then mentions the knossian cup "with writing inscribed on it apparently in pen and ink ... the conclusion is that ordinary writing was in use, but that the materials, probably palm leaves, have disappeared." [footnote: _ibid_., pp. 258, 259.] why it should be unlikely that a people confessedly familiar with writing used it for the preservation of literature, when we know that even the red indians preserve their songs by means of pictographs, while west african tribes use incised characters, is certainly not obvious. many sorts of prae-phoenician writing were current during the mycenaean age in asia, egypt, assyria, and in cyprus. as these other peoples used writing of their own sort for literary purposes, it is not easy to see why the cretans, for example, should not have done the same thing. indeed, father browne supposes that the mycenaeans used "ordinary writing," and used it freely. nevertheless, the epic was not written, he says, till the sixth century b.c. cauer, indeed, remarks that "the finnish epic" existed unwritten till lbnnrot, its pisistratus, first collected it from oral recitation. [footnote: _grundfragen der homerkritik_, p. 94.] but there is not, and never was, any "finnish epic." there were cosmogonic songs, as among the maoris and zuñis--songs of the beginnings of things; there were magical songs, songs of weddings, a song based on the same popular tale that underlies the legend of the argonauts. there were songs of the culture hero, songs of burial and feast, and of labour. lönnrot collected these, and tried by interpolations to make an epic out of them; but the point, as comparetti has proved, is that he failed. there is no finnish epic, only a mass of _volkslieder._ cauer's other argument, that the german popular tales, grimm's tales, were unwritten till 1812, is as remote from the point at issue. nothing can be less like an epic than a volume of _märchen._ as usual we are driven back upon a literary judgment. is the _iliad_ a patchwork of metrical _märchen_ or is it an epic nobly constructed? if it is the former, writing was not needed; if it is the latter, in the absence of homeric guilds or colleges, only writing can account for its preservation. it is impossible to argue against a critic's subjective sense of what is likely. possibly that sense is born of the feeling that the cretan linear script, for example, or the cyprian syllabary, looks very odd and outlandish. the critic's imagination boggles at the idea of an epic written in such scripts. in that case his is not the scientific imagination; he is checked merely by the unfamiliar. or his sense of unlikelihood may be a subconscious survival of wolf's opinion, formed by him at a time when the existence of the many scripts of the old world was unknown. our own sense of probability leads us to the conclusion that, in an age when people could write, people wrote down the epic. if they applied their art to literature, then the preservation of the epic is explained. written first in a prae-phoenician script, it continued to be written in the greek adaptation of the phoenician alphabet. there was not yet, probably, a reading public, but there were a few clerkly men. that the cretans, at least, could write long before the age of homer, mr. arthur evans has demonstrated by his discoveries. prom my remote undergraduate days i was of the opinion which he has proved to be correct, starting, like him, from what i knew about savage pictographs. [footnote: cretan _pictographs_ and _prae-phoenician_ script. london, 1905. annual of british _school_ of athens, 1900-1901, p. 10. journal of _hellenic studies,_ 1897, pp. 327-395.] m. reinach and mr. evans have pointed out that in this matter tradition joins hands with discovery. diodorus siculus, speaking of the cretan zeus and probably on cretan authority, says: "as to those who hold that the syrians invented letters, from whom the phoenicians received them and handed them on to the greeks, ... and that for this reason the greeks call letters 'phoenician,' some reply that the phoenicians did not [blank space] letters, but merely modified (transposed 3) the forms of the letters, and that most men use this form of script, and thus letters came to be styled 'phoenician.'" [footnote: diodorus siculus, v. 74. _l'anthropologie,_ vol. xi. pp. 497-502.] in fact, the alphabet is a collection of signs of palaeolithic antiquity and of vast diffusion. [footnote: origins of the alphabet. a. l. fortnightly review, 1904, pp. 634-645] thus the use of writing for the conservation of the epic cannot seem to me to be unlikely, but rather probable; and here one must leave the question, as the subjective element plays so great a part in every man's sense of what is likely or unlikely. that writing cannot have been used for this literary purpose, that the thing is impossible, nobody will now assert. my supposition is, then, that the text of the epic existed in aegean script till greece adapted to her own tongue the "phoenician letters," which i think she did not later than the ninth to eighth centuries; "at the beginning of the ninth century," says professor bury. [footnote: _history of greece_, vol. i. p. 78. 1902.] this may seem an audaciously early date, but when we find vases of the eighth to seventh centuries bearing inscriptions, we may infer that a knowledge of reading and writing was reasonably common. when such a humble class of hirelings or slaves as the pot-painters can sign their work, expecting their signatures to be read, reading and writing must be very common accomplishments among the more fortunate classes. if mr. gardner is right in dating a number of incised inscriptions on early pottery at naucratis before the middle of the seventh century, we reach the same conclusion. in fact, if these inscriptions be of a century earlier than the abu simbel inscriptions, of date 590 b.c., we reach 690 b.c. wherefore, as writing does not become common in a moment, it must have existed in the eighth century b.c. we are not dealing here with a special learned class, but with ordinary persons who could write. [footnote: _the early ionic alphabet: journal of hellenic studies_, vol. vii. pp. 220-239. roberts, _introduction to greek epigraphy_, pp. 31, 151, 159, 164, 165-167] interesting for our purpose is the verse incised on a dipylon vase, found at athens in 1880. it is of an ordinary cream-jug shape, with a neck, a handle, a spout, and a round belly. on the neck, within a zigzag "geometrical" pattern, is a doe, feeding, and a tall water-fowl. on the shoulder is scratched with a point, in very antique attic characters running from right to left, [greek: os nun orchaeston panton hatalotata pais ei, tou tode]. "this is the jug of him who is the most delicately sportive of all dancers of our time." the jug is attributed to the eighth century. [footnote: walters, _history of ancient pottery_, vol. ii. p, 243; kretschmer, _griechischen vasen inschriften_, p. 110, 1894, of the seventh century. h. von rohden, _denkmaler_, iii. pp. 1945, 1946: "probably dating from the seventh century." roberts, op. cit., vol. i. p. 74, "at least as far back as the seventh century," p. 75.] taking the vase, with mr. walters, as of the eighth century, i do not suppose that the amateur who gave it to a dancer and scratched the hexameter was of a later generation than the jug itself. the vase may have cost him sixpence: he would give his friend a _new_ vase; it is improbable that old jugs were sold at curiosity shops in these days, and given by amateurs to artists. the inscription proves that, in the eighth to seventh centuries, at a time of very archaic characters (the alpha is lying down on its side, the aspirate is an oblong with closed ends and a stroke across the middle, and the iota is curved at each end), people could write with ease, and would put verse into writing. the general accomplishment of reading is taken for granted. reading is also taken for granted by the gortyn (cretan) inscription of twelve columns long, _boustro-phedon_ (running alternately from left to right, and from right to left). in this inscribed code of laws, incised on stone, money is not mentioned in the more ancient part, but fines and prices are calculated in "chalders" and "bolls" ([greek: lebaetes] and [greek: tripodes]), as in scotland when coin was scarce indeed. whether the law contemplated the value of the vessels themselves, or, as in scotland, of their contents in grain, i know not. the later inscriptions deal with coined money. if coin came in about 650 b.c., the older parts of the inscription may easily be of 700 b.c. the gortyn inscription implies the power of writing out a long code of laws, and it implies that persons about to go to law could read the public inscription, as we can read a proclamation posted up on a wall, or could have it read to them. [footnote: roberts, vol. i. pp. 52-55.] the alphabets inscribed on vases of the seventh century (abecedaria), with "the archaic greek forms of every one of the twenty-two phoenician letters arranged precisely in the received semitic order," were, one supposes, gifts for boys and girls who were learning to read, just like our english alphabets on gingerbread. [footnote: for abecedaria, cf. roberts, vol. i. pp. 16-21.] among inscriptions on tombstones of the end of the seventh century, there is the epitaph of a daughter of a potter. [footnote: roberts, vol. i. p. 76.] these writings testify to the general knowledge of reading, just as much as our epitaphs testify to the same state of education. the athenian potter's daughter of the seventh century b.c. had her epitaph, but the grave-stones of highlanders, chiefs or commoners, were usually uninscribed till about the end of the eighteenth century, in deference to custom, itself arising from the illiteracy of the highlanders in times past. [footnote: ramsay, _scotland and scotsmen_, ii. p. 426. 1888.] i find no difficulty, therefore, in supposing that there were some greek readers and writers in the eighth century, and that primary education was common in the seventh. in these circumstances my sense of the probable is not revolted by the idea of a written epic, in [blank space] characters, even in the eighth century, but the notion that there was no such thing till the middle of the sixth century seems highly improbable. all the conditions were present which make for the composition and preservation of literary works in written texts. that there were many early written copies of homer in the eighth century i am not inclined to believe. the greeks were early a people who could read, but were not a reading people. setting newspapers aside, there is no such thing as a reading _people_. the greeks preferred to listen to recitations, but my hypothesis is that the rhapsodists who recited had texts, like the _jongleurs_' books of their epics in france, and that they occasionally, for definite purposes, interpolated matter into their texts. there were also texts, known in later times as "city texts" ([greek: ai kata poleis]), which aristarchus knew, but he did not adopt the various readings. [footnote: monro, odyssey, vol. ii. p, 435.] athens had a text in solon's time, if he entered the decree that the whole epic should be recited in due order, every five years, at the panathenaic festival. [footnote: _ibid_., vol. ii. p. 395.] "this implies the possession of a complete text." [footnote: _ibid_., vol. ii. p. 403.] cauer remarks that the possibility of "interpolation" "began only after the fixing of the text by pisistratus." [footnote: _grundfragen_, p. 205.] but surely if every poet and reciter could thrust any new lines which he chose to make into any old lays which he happened to know, that was interpolation, whether he had a book of the words or had none. such interpolations would fill the orally recited lays which the supposed pisistratean editor must have written down from recitation before he began his colossal task of making the _iliad_ out of them. if, on the other hand, reciters had books of the words, they could interpolate at pleasure into _them_, and such books may have been among the materials used in the construction of a text for the athenian book market. but if our theory be right, there must always have been a few copies of better texts than those of the late reciters' books, and the effort of the editors for the book market would be to keep the parts in which most manuscripts were agreed. but how did athens, or any other city, come to possess a text? one can only conjecture; but my conjecture is that there had always been texts--copied out in successive generations--in the hands of the curious; for example, in the hands of the cyclic poets, who knew our _iliad_ as the late french cyclic poets knew the earlier _chansons de geste_. they certainly knew it, for they avoided interference with it; they worked at epics which led up to it, as in the _cypria;_ they borrowed _motifs_ from hints and references in the _iliad_, [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, vol. ii. pp. 350, 351.] and they carried on the story from the death of hector, in the _aethiopis_ of arctinus of miletus. this epic ended with the death of achilles, when _the little iliad_ produced the tale to the bringing in of the wooden horse. arctinus goes on with his _sack_ of _ilios_, others wrote of _the return_ of _the heroes,_ and the _telegonia_ is a sequel to the odyssey. the authors of these poems knew the _iliad_, then, as a whole, and how could they have known it thus if it only existed in the casual _repertoire_ of strolling reciters? the cyclic poets more probably had texts of homer, and themselves wrote their own poems--how it paid, whether they recited them and collected rewards or not, is, of course, unknown. the cyclic poems, to quote sir richard jebb, "help to fix the lowest limit for the age of the homeric poems. [footnote: _homer_, pp. 151, 154.] the earliest cyclic poems, dating from about 776 b.c., presuppose the _iliad_, being planned to introduce or continue it.... it would appear, then, that the _iliad_ must have existed in something like its present compass as early as 800 b.c.; indeed a considerably earlier date will seem probable, if due time is allowed for the poem to have grown into such fame as would incite the effort to continue it and to prelude to it." sir richard then takes the point on which we have already insisted, namely, that the cyclic poets of the eighth century b.c. live in an age of ideas, religions, ritual, and so forth which are absent from the _iliad_ [footnote: homer, pp. 154, 155.] thus the _iliad_ existed with its characteristics that are prior to 800 b.c., and in its present compass, and was renowned before 800 b.c. as it could not possibly have thus existed in the _repertoire_ of irresponsible strolling minstrels and reciters, and as there is no evidence for a college, school, or guild which preserved the epic by a system of mnemonic teaching, while no one can deny at least the possibility of written texts, we are driven to the hypothesis that written texts there were, whence descended, for example, the text of athens. we can scarcely suppose, however, that such texts were perfect in all respects, for we know how, several centuries later, in a reading age, papyrus fragments of the _iliad_ display unwarrantable interpolation. [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, vol. ii. pp. 422-426.] but plato's frequent quotations, of course made at an earlier date, show that "whatever interpolated texts of homer were then current, the copy from which plato quoted was not one of them." [footnote: _ibid_., p. 429] plato had something much better. when a reading public for homer arose--and, from the evidences of the widespread early knowledge of reading, such a small public may have come into existence sooner than is commonly supposed--athens was the centre of the book trade. to athens must be due the prae-alexandrian vulgate, or prevalent text, practically the same as our own. some person or persons must have made that text--not by taking down from recitation all the lays which they could collect, as herd, scott, mrs. brown, and others collected much of the _border minstrelsy_, and not by then tacking the lays into a newly-composed whole. they must have done their best with such texts as were accessible to them, and among these were probably the copies used by reciters and rhapsodists, answering to the ms. books of the mediaeval _jongleurs._ mr. jevons has justly and acutely remarked that "we do not know, and there is no external evidence of any description which leads us to suppose, that the _iliad_ was ever expanded" (_j. h. s_, vii. 291-308). that it was expanded is a mere hypothesis based on the idea that "if there was an _iliad_ at all in the ninth century, its length must have been such as was compatible with the conditions of an oral delivery,"--"a poem or poems short enough to be recited at a single sitting." but we have proved, with mr. jevons and blass, and by the analogy of the chansons that, given a court audience (and a court audience is granted), there were no such narrow limits imposed on the length of a poem orally recited from night to night. the length of the _iliad_ yields, therefore, no argument for expansions throughout several centuries. that theory, suggested by the notion that the original poem _must_ have been short, is next supposed to be warranted by the inconsistencies and discrepancies. but we argue that these are only visible, as a rule, to "the analytical reader," for whom the poet certainly was not composing; that they occur in all long works of fictitious narrative; that the discrepancies often are not discrepancies; and, finally, that they are not nearly so glaring as the inconsistencies in the theories of each separatist critic. a theory, in such matter as this, is itself an explanatory myth, or the plot of a story which the critic invents to account for the facts in the case. these critical plots, we have shown, do not account for the facts of the case, for the critics do not excel in constructing plots. they wander into unperceived self-contradictions which they would not pardon in the poet. these contradictions are visible to "the analytical reader," who concludes that a very early poet may have been, though homer seldom is, as inconsistent as a modern critic. meanwhile, though we have no external evidence that the _iliad_ was ever expanded--that it was expanded is an explanatory myth of the critics--"we do know, on good evidence," says mr. jevons, "that the _iliad_ was rhapsodised." the rhapsodists were men, as a rule, of one day recitations, though at a prolonged festival at athens there was time for the whole _iliad_ to be recited. "they chose for recitation such incidents as could be readily detached, were interesting in themselves, and did not take too long to recite." mr. jevons suggests that the many brief poems collected in the homeric hymns are invocations which the rhapsodists preluded to their recitals. the practice seems to have been for the rhapsodist first to pay his reverence to the god, "to begin from the god," at whose festival the recitation was being given (the short proems collected in the hymns pay this reverence), "and then proceed with his rhapsody"--with his selected passage from the _iliad_, "beginning with thee" (the god of the festival), "i will go on to another lay," that is, to his selection from the epic. another conclusion of the proem often is, "i will be mindful both of thee and of another lay," meaning, says mr. jevons, that "the local deity will figure in the recitation from homer which the rhapsodist is about to deliver." these explanations, at all events, yield good sense. the invocation of athene (hymns, xi., xxviii.) would serve as the proem of invocation to the recital of _iliad_, v., vi. 1-311, the day of valour of diomede, spurred on by the wanton rebuke of agamemnon, and aided by athene. the invocation of hephaestus (hymn xx.), would prelude to a recital of the _making of the awns of achilles_, and so on. but the rhapsodist may be reciting at a festival of dionysus, about whom there is practically nothing said in the _iliad_; for it is a proof of the antiquity of the _iliad_ that, when it was composed, dionysus had not been raised to the olympian peerage, being still a folk-god only. the rhapsodist, at a feast of dionysus in later times, has to introduce the god into his recitation. the god is not in his text, but he adds him. [footnote:_ibid_., vi. 130-141] why should any mortal have made this interpolation? mr. jevons's theory supplies the answer. the rhapsodist added the passages to suit the dionysus feast, at which he was reciting. the same explanation is offered for the long story of the _birth_ of [blank space] which agamemnon tells in his speech of apology and reconciliation. [footnote:_ibid_., xix. 136.] there is an invocation to heracles (hymns, xv.), and the author may have added this speech to his rhapsody of the reconciliation, recited at a feast of heracles. perhaps the remark of mr. leaf offers the real explanation of the presence of this long story in the speech of agamemnon: "many speakers with a bad case take refuge in telling stories." agamemnon shows, says mr. leaf, "the peevish nervousness of a man who feels that he has been in the wrong," and who follows a frank speaker like achilles, only eager for agamemnon to give the word to form and charge. so agamemnon takes refuge in a long story, throwing the blame of his conduct on destiny. we do not need, then, the theory of a rhapsodist's interpolation, but it is quite plausible in itself. local heroes, as well as gods, had their feasts in post-homeric times, and a reciter at a feast of aeneas, or of his mother, aphrodite, may have foisted in the very futile discourse of achilles and aeneas, [footnote:_ibid_., xx. 213-250.] with its reference to erichthonius, an athenian hero. in other cases the rhapsodist rounded off his selected passage by a few lines, as in _iliad_, xiii. 656-659, where a hero is brought to follow his son's dead body to the grave, though the father had been killed in _v. 576_. "it is really such a slip as is often made by authors who write," says mr. leaf; and, in _esmond_, thackeray makes similar errors. the passage in xvi. 69-80, about which so much is said, as if it contradicted book ix. (_the embassy to achilles_), is also, mr. jevons thinks, to be explained as "inserted by a rhapsodist wishing to make his extract complete in itself." another example--the confusion in the beginning of book ii.--we have already discussed (see chapter iv.), and do not think that any explanation is needed, when we understand that agamemnon, once wide-awake, had no confidence in his dream. however, mr. jevons thinks that rhapsodists, anxious to recite straight on from the dream to the battle, added ii. 35-41, "the only lines which represent agamemnon as believing confidently in his dream." we have argued that he only believed _till he awoke_, and then, as always, wavered. thus, in our way of looking at these things, interpolations by rhapsodists are not often needed as explanations of difficulties. still, granted that the rhapsodists, like the _jongleurs_, had texts, and that these were studied by the makers of the vulgate, interpolations and errors might creep in by this way. as to changes in language, "a poetical dialect... is liable to be gradually modified by the influence of the ever-changing colloquial speech. and, in the early times, when writing was little used, this influence would be especially operative." [footnote: monro, _odyssey_, vol. ii. p. 461.] to conclude, the hypothesis of a school of mnemonic teaching of the _iliad_ would account for the preservation of so long a poem in an age destitute of writing, when memory would be well cultivated. there may have been such schools. we only lack evidence for their existence. but against the hypothesis of the existence of early texts, there is nothing except the feeling of some critics that it is not likely. "they are dangerous guides, the feelings." in any case the opinion that the _iliad_ was a whole, centuries before pisistratus, is the hypothesis which is by far the least fertile in difficulties, and, consequently, in inconsistent solutions of the problems which the theory of expansion first raises, and then, like an unskilled magician, fails to lay. and chris brennen essays and miscellanies the complete works volume 3 by plutarch contents philosophical essays that it is not possible to live pleasurably according to the doctrine of epicurus that a philosopher ought chiefly to converse with great men sentiments concerning nature, with which philosophers were delighted abstract of a discourse showing that the stoics speak greater improbabilities than the poets symposiacs common conceptions against the stoics contradictions of the stoics the eating of flesh concerning fate against colotes, the disciple and favorite of epicurus platonic questions literary essays the life and poetry of homer the banquet of the seven wise men how a young man ought to hear poems abstract of a comparison between aristophanes and menander the malice of herodotus philosophical essays that it is not possible to live pleasurably according to the doctrine of epicurus. plutarch, zeuxippus, theon, aristodemus. epicurus's great confidant and familiar, colotes, set forth a book with this title to it, that according to the tenets of the other philosophers it is impossible to live. now what occurred to me then to say against him, in the defence of those philosophers, hath been already put into writing by me. but since upon breaking up of our lecture several things have happened to be spoken afterwards in the walks in further opposition to his party, i thought it not amiss to recollect them also, if for no other reason, yet for this one, that those who will needs be contradicting other men may see that they ought not to run cursorily over the discourses and writings of those they would disprove, nor by tearing out one word here and another there, or by falling foul upon particular passages without the books, to impose upon the ignorant and unlearned. now as we were leaving the school to take a walk (as our manner is) in the gymnasium, zeuxippus began to us: in my opinion, said he, the debate was managed on our side with more softness and less freedom than was fitting. i am sure, heraclides went away disgusted with us, for handling epicurus and aletrodorus more roughly than they deserved. yet you may remember, replied theon, how you told them that colotes himself, compared with the rhetoric of those two gentlemen, would appear the complaisantest man alive; for when they have raked together the lewdest terms of ignominy the tongue of man ever used, as buffooneries, trollings, arrogancies, whorings, assassinations, whining counterfeits, black-guards, and blockheads, they faintly throw them in the faces of aristotle, socrates, pythagoras, protagoras, theophrastus, heraclides, hipparchus, and which not, even of the best and most celebrated authorities. so that, should they pass for very knowing men upon all other accounts, yet their very calumnies and reviling language would bespeak them at the greatest distance from philosophy imaginable. for emulation can never enter that godlike consort, nor such fretfulness as wants resolution to conceal its own resentments. aristodemus then subjoined: heraclides, you know, is a great philologist; and that may be the reason why he made epicurus those amends for the poetic din (so, that party style poetry) and for the fooleries of homer; or else, it may be, it was because metrodorus had libelled that poet in so many books. but let us let these gentlemen pass at present, zeuxippus, and rather return to what was charged upon the philosophers in the beginning of our discourse, that it is impossible to live according to their tenets. and i see not why we two may not despatch this affair betwixt us, with the good assistance of theon; for i find this gentleman (meaning me) is already tired. then theon said to him, our fellows have that garland from us won; therefore, if you please, let's fix another goal, and at that run. ("odyssey," xxii, 6) we will even prosecute them at the suit of the philosophers, in the following form: we'll prove, if we can, that it is impossible to live a pleasurable life according to their tenets. bless me! said i to him, smiling, you seem to me to level your foot at the very bellies of the men, and to design to enter the list with them for their lives, whilst you go about to rob them thus of their pleasure, and they cry out to you, "forbear, we're no good boxers, sir; no, nor good pleaders, nor good senators, nor good magistrates either; "our proper talent is to eat and drink." ("odyssey," viii, 246, 248) and to excite such tender and delicate motions in our bodies as may chafe our imaginations to some jolly delight or gayety." and therefore you seem to me not so much to take off (as i may say) the pleasurable part, as to deprive the men of their very lives, while you will not leave them to live pleasurably. nay then, said theon, if you approve so highly of this subject, why do you not set in hand to it? by all means, said i, i am for this, and shall not only hear but answer you too, if you shall insist. but i must leave it to you to take the lead. then, after theon had spoken something to excuse himself, aristodemus said: when we had so short and fair a cut to our design, how have you blocked up the way before us, by preventing us from joining issue with the faction at the very first upon the single point of propriety! for you must grant, it can be no easy matter to drive men already possessed that pleasure is their utmost good yet to believe a life of pleasure impossible to be attained. but now the truth is, that when they failed of living becomingly they failed also of living pleasurably; for to live pleasurably without living becomingly is even by themselves allowed inconsistent. theon then said: we may probably resume the consideration of that in the process of our discourse; in the interim we will make use of their concessions. now they suppose their last good to lie about the belly and such other conveyances of the body as let in pleasure and not pain; and are of opinion, that all the brave and ingenious inventions that ever have been were contrived at first for the pleasure of the belly, or the good hope of compassing such pleasure,--as the sage metrodorus informs us. by which, my good friend, it is very plain, they found their pleasure in a poor, rotten, and unsure thing, and one that is equally perforated for pains, by the very passages they receive their pleasures by; or rather indeed, that admits pleasure but by a few, but pain by all its parts. for the whole of pleasure is in a manner in the joints, nerves, feet, and hands; and these are oft the seats of very grievous and lamentable distempers, as gouts, corroding rheums, gangrenes, and putrid ulcers. and if you apply to yourself the exquisitest of perfumes or gusts, you will find but some one small part of your body is finely and delicately touched, while the rest are many times filled with anguish and complaints. besides, there is no part of us proof against fire, sword, teeth, or scourges, or insensible of dolors and aches; yea, heats, colds, and fevers sink into all our parts alike. but pleasures, like gales of soft wind, move simpering, one towards one extreme of the body and another towards another, and then go off in a vapor. nor are they of any long durance, but, as so many glancing meteors, they are no sooner kindled in the body than they are quenched by it. as to pain, aeschylus's philoctetes affords us a sufficient testimony:- the cruel viper ne'er will quit my foot; her dire envenomed teeth have there ta'en root. for pain will not troll off as pleasure doth, nor imitate it in its pleasing and tickling touches. but as the clover twists its perplexed and winding roots into the earth, and through its coarseness abides there a long time; so pain disperses and entangles its hooks and roots in the body, and continues there, not for a day or a night, but for several seasons of years, if not for some revolutions of olympiads, nor scarce ever departs unless struck out by other pains, as by stronger nails. for who ever drank so long as those that are in a fever are a-dry? or who was ever so long eating as those that are besieged suffer hunger? or where are there any that are so long solaced with the conversation of friends as tyrants are racking and tormenting? now all this is owing to the baseness of the body and its natural incapacity for a pleasurable life; for it bears pains better than it doth pleasures, and with respect to those is firm and hardy, but with respect to these is feeble and soon palled. to which add, that if we are minded to discourse on a life of pleasure, these men won't give us leave to go on, but will presently confess themselves that the pleasures of the body are but short, or rather indeed but of a moment's continuance; if they do not design to banter us or else speak out of vanity, when metrodorus tells us, we many times spit at the pleasures of the body, and epicurus saith, a wise man, when he is sick, many times laughs in the very extremity of his distemper. for ithaca is no fit place for mettled steeds to run a race. ("odyssey," iv. 605.) neither can the joys of our poor bodies be smooth and equal; but on the contrary they must be coarse and harsh, and immixed with much that is displeasing and inflamed. zeuxippus then said: and do you not think then they take the right course to begin at the body, where they observe pleasure to have its first rise, and thence to pass to the mind as the more stable and sure part, there to complete and crown the whole? they do, by jove, i said; and if, after removing thither they have indeed found something more consummate than before, a course too as well agreeing with nature as becoming men adorned with both contemplative and civil knowledge. but if after all this you still hear them cry out, and protest that the mind of man can receive no satisfaction or tranquillity from anything under heaven but the pleasures of the body either in possession or expectance, and that these are its proper and only good, can you forbear thinking they make use of the soul but as a funnel for the body, while they mellow their pleasure by shifting it from one vessel to another, as they rack wine out of an old and leaky vessel into a new one and there let it grow old, and then imagine they have performed some extraordinary and very fine thing? true indeed, a fresh pipe may both keep and recover wine that hath thus been drawn off; but the mind, receiving but the remembrance only of past pleasure, like a kind of scent, retains that and no more. for as soon as it hath given one hiss in the body, it immediately expires, and that little of it that stays behind in the memory is but flat and like a queasy fume: as if a man should lay up and treasure in his fancy what he either ate or drank yesterday, that he may have recourse to that when he wants fresh fare. see now how much more temperate the cyrenaics are, who, though they have drunk out of the same bottle with epicurus, yet will not allow men so much as to practise their amours by candlelight, but only under the covert of the dark, for fear seeing should fasten too quick an impression of the images of such actions upon the fancy and thereby too frequently inflame the desire. but these gentlemen account it the highest accomplishment of a philosopher to have a clear and retentive memory of all the various figures, passions, and touches of past pleasure. we will not now say, they present us with nothing worthy the name of philosophy, while they leave the refuse of pleasure in their wise man's mind, as if it could be a lodging for bodies; but that it is impossible such things as these should make a man live pleasurably, i think is abundantly manifest from hence. for it will not perhaps seem strange if i assert, that the memory of pleasure past brings no pleasure with it if it appeared but little in the very enjoyment, or to men of such abstinence as to account it for their benefit to retire from its first approaches; when even the most amazed and sensual admirers of corporeal delights remain no longer in their gaudy and pleasant humor than their pleasure lasts them. what remains is but an empty shadow and dream of that pleasure that hath now taken wing and is fled from them, and that serves but for fuel to foment their untamed desires. like as in those that dream they are a-dry or in love, their unaccomplished pleasures and enjoyments do but excite the inclination to a greater keenness. nor indeed can the remembrance of past enjoyments afford them any real contentment at all, but must serve only, with the help of a quick desire, to raise up very much of outrage and stinging pain out of the remains of a feeble and befooling pleasure. neither doth it befit men of continence and sobriety to exercise their thoughts about such poor things, or to do what one twitted carneades with, to reckon, as out of a diurnal, how oft they have lain with hedia or leontion, or where they last drank thasian wine, or at what twentieth-day feast they had a costly supper. for such transport and captivatedness of the mind to its own remembrances as this is would show a detestable and bestial restlessness and raving towards the present and hoped-for acts of pleasure. and therefore i cannot but look upon the sense of these inconveniences as the true cause of their retiring at last to a freedom from pain and a firm state of body; as if living pleasurably could lie in bare imagining this either past or future to some persons. true indeed it is, "that a sound state of body and a good assurance of its continuing must needs afford a most transcending and solid satisfaction to all men capable of reasoning." but yet look first what work they make, while they course this same thing--whether it be pleasure, exemption from pain, or good health--up and down, first from the body to the mind, and then back again from the mind to the body, being compelled to return it to its first origin, lest it should run out and so give them the slip. thus they place the pleasure of the body (as epicurus says) upon the complacent joy in the mind, and yet conclude again with the good hopes that complacent joy hath in bodily pleasure. indeed what wonder is it if, when the foundation shakes, the superstructure totter? or that there should be no sure hope nor unshaken joy in a matter that suffers so great concussion and changes as continually attend a body exposed to so many violences and strokes from without, and having within it the origins of such evils as human reason cannot avert? for if it could, no understanding man would ever fall under stranguries, gripes, consumptions, or dropsies; with some of which epicurus himself did conflict and polyaenus with others, while others of them were the deaths of neocles and agathobulus. and this we mention not to disparage them, knowing very well that pherecydes and heraclitus, both very excellent persons, labored under very uncouth and calamitous distempers. we only beg of them, if they will own their own diseases and not by noisy rants and popular harangues incur the imputation of false bravery, either not to take the health of the whole body for the ground of their content, or else not to say that men under the extremities of dolors and diseases can yet rally and be pleasant. for a sound and hale constitution of body is indeed a thing that often happens, but a firm and steadfast assurance of its continuance can never befall an intelligent mind. but as at sea (according to aeschylus) night to the ablest pilot trouble brings, (aechylus, "suppliants," 770.) and so will a calm too, for no man knows what will be,--so likewise is it impossible for a soul that dwells in a healthful body, and that places her good in the hopes she hath of that body, to perfect her voyage here without frights or waves. for man's mind hath not, like the sea, its tempests and storms only from without it, but it also raises up from within far more and greater disturbances. and a man may with more reason look for constant fair weather in the midst of winter than for perpetual exemption from afflictions in his body. for what else hath given the poets occasion to term us ephemeral creatures, uncertain and unfixed, and to liken our lives to leaves that both spring and fall in the lapse of a summer, but the unhappy, calamitous, and sickly condition of the body, whose very utmost good we are warned to dread and prevent? for an exquisite habit, hippocrates saith, is slippery and hazardous. and he that but now looked jolly, plump, and stout, like a star shot by jove, is now gone out; as it is in euripides. and it is a vulgar persuasion, that very handsome persons, when looked upon, oft suffer damage by envy and an evil eye; for a body at its utmost vigor will through delicacy very soon admit of changes. but now that these men are miserably unprovided for an undisturbed life, you may discern even from what they themselves advance against others. for they say that those who commit wickedness and incur the displeasure of the laws live in constant misery and fear, for, though they may perhaps attain to privacy, yet it is impossible they should ever be well assured of that privacy; whence the ever impending fear of the future will not permit them to have either complacency or assurance in their present circumstances. but they consider not how they speak all this against themselves. for a sound and healthy state of body they may indeed oftentimes possess, but that they should ever be well assured of its continuance is impossible; and they must of necessity be in constant disquiet and pain for the body with respect to futurity, never being able to reach that firm and steadfast assurance which they expect. but to do no wickedness will contribute nothing to our assurance; for it is not suffering unjustly but suffering in itself that is dismaying. nor can it be a matter of trouble to be engaged in villanies one's self, and not afflictive to suffer by the villanies of others. neither can it be said that the tyranny of lachares was less, if it was not more, calamitous to the athenians, and that of dionysius to the syracusans, than they were to the tyrants themselves; for it was disturbing that made them be disturbed; and their first oppressing and pestering of others gave them occasion to expect to suffer ill themselves. why should a man recount the outrages of rabbles, the barbarities of thieves, or the villanies of inheritors, or yet the contagions of airs and the concursions of seas, by which epicurus (as himself writeth) was in his voyage to lampsacus within very little of drowning? the very composition of the body--it containing in it the matter of all diseases, and (to use a pleasantry of the vulgar) cutting thongs for the beast out of its own hide, i mean pains out of the body--is sufficient to make life perilous and uneasy, and that to the good as well as to the bad, if they have learned to set their complacence and assurance in the body and the hopes they have of it, and in nothing else; as epicurus hath written, as well in many other of his discourses as in that of man's end. they therefore assign not only a treacherous and unsure ground of their pleasurable living, but also one in all respects despicable and little, if the escaping of evils be the matter of their complacence and last good. but now they tell us, nothing else can be so much as imagined, and nature hath no other place to bestow her good in but only that out of which her evil hath been driven; as metrodorus speaks in his book against the sophists. so that this single thing, to escape evil, he says, is the supreme good; for there is no room to lodge this good in where no more of what is painful and afflicting goes out. like unto this is that of epicurus, where he saith: the very essence of good arises from the escaping of bad, and a man's recollecting, considering, and rejoicing within himself that this hath befallen him. for what occasions transcending joy (he saith) is some great impending evil escaped; and in this lies the very nature and essence of good, if a man consider it aright, and contain himself when he hath done, and not ramble and prate idly about it. oh, the rare satisfaction and felicity these men enjoy, that can thus rejoice for having undergone no evil and endured neither sorrow nor pain! have they not reason, think you, to value themselves for such things as these, and to speak as they are wont when they style themselves immortals and equals to gods?--and when, through the excessiveness and transcendency of the blessed things they enjoy, they rave even to the degree of whooping and hollowing for very satisfaction that, to the shame of all mortals, they have been the only men that could find out this celestial and divine good that lies in an exemption from all evil? so that their beatitude differs little from that of swine and sheep, while they place it in a mere tolerable and contented state, either of the body, or of the mind upon the body's account. for even the more prudent and more ingenious sort of brutes do not esteem escaping of evil their last end; but when they have taken their repast, they are disposed next by fullness to singing, and they divert themselves with swimming and flying; and their gayety and sprightliness prompt them to entertain themselves with attempting to counterfeit all sorts of voices and notes; and then they make their caresses to one another, by skipping and dancing one towards another; nature inciting them, after they have escaped evil, to look after some good, or rather to shake off what they find uneasy and disagreeing, as an impediment to their pursuit of something better and more congenial. for what we cannot be without deserves not the name of good; but that which claims our desire and preference must be something beyond a bare escape from evil. and so, by jove, must that be too that is either agreeing or congenial to us, according to plato, who will not allow us to give the name of pleasures to the bare departures of sorrows and pains, but would have us look upon them rather as obscure draughts and mixtures of agreeing and disagreeing, as of black and white, while the extremes would advance themselves to a middle temperament. but oftentimes unskilfulness and ignorance of the true nature of extreme occasions some to mistake the middle temperament for the extreme and outmost part. thus do epicurus and metrodorus, while they make avoiding of evil to be the very essence and consummation of good, and so receive but as it were the satisfaction of slaves or of rogues newly discharged the jail, who are well enough contented if they may but wash and supple their sores and the stripes they received by whipping, but never in their lives had one taste or sight of a generous, clean, unmixed and unulcerated joy. for it follows not that, if it be vexatious to have one's body itch or one's eyes to run, it must be therefore a blessing to scratch one's self, and to wipe one's eye with a rag; nor that, if it be bad to be dejected or dismayed at divine matters or to be discomposed with the relations of hell, therefore the bare avoiding of all this must be some happy and amiable thing. the truth is, these men's opinion, though it pretends so far to outgo that of the vulgar, allows their joy but a straight and narrow compass to toss and tumble in, while it extends it but to an exemption from the fear of hell, and so makes that the top of acquired wisdom which is doubtless natural to the brutes. for if freedom from bodily pain be still the same, whether it come by endeavor or by nature, neither then is an undisturbed state of mind the greater for being attained to by industry than if it came by nature. though a man may with good reason maintain that to be the more confirmed habit of the mind which naturally admits of no disorder, than that which by application and judgment eschews it. but let us suppose them both equal; they will yet appear not one jot superior to the beasts for being unconcerned at the stories of hell and the legends of the gods, and for not expecting endless sorrows and everlasting torments hereafter. for it is epicurus himself that tells us that, had our surmises about heavenly phenomena and our foolish apprehensions of death and the pains that ensue it given us no disquiet, we had not then needed to contemplate nature for our relief. for neither have the brutes any weak surmises of the gods or fond opinion about things after death to disorder themselves with; nor have they as much as imagination or notion that there is anything in these to be dreaded. i confess, had they left us the benign providence of god as a presumption, wise men might then seem, by reason of their good hopes from thence, to have something towards a pleasurable life that beasts have not. but now, since they have made it the scope of all their discourses of god that they may not fear him, but may be eased of all concern about him, i much question whether those that never thought at all of him have not this in a more confirmed degree than they that have learned to think he can do no harm. for if they were never freed from superstition, they never fell into it; and if they never laid aside a disturbing conceit of god, they never took one up. the like may be said as to hell and the future state. for though neither the epicurean nor the brute can hope for any good thence; yet such as have no forethought of death at all cannot but be less amused and scared with what comes after it than they that betake themselves to the principle that death is nothing to us. but something to them it must be, at least so far as they concern themselves to reason about it and contemplate it; but the beasts are wholly exempted from thinking of what appertains not to them; and if they fly from blows, wounds, and slaughters, they fear no more in death than is dismaying to the epicurean himself. such then are the things they boast to have attained by their philosophy. let us now see what those are they deprive themselves of and chase away from them. for those diffusions of the mind that arise from the body, and the pleasing condition of the body, if they be but moderate, appear to have nothing in them that is either great or considerable; but if they be excessive, besides their being vain and uncertain, they are also importune and petulant; nor should a man term them either mental satisfactions or gayeties, but rather corporeal gratifications, they being at best but the simperings and effeminacies of the mind. but now such as justly deserve the names of complacencies and joys are wholly refined from their contraries, and are immixed with neither vexation, remorse, nor repentance; and their good is congenial to the mind and truly mental and genuine, and not superinduced. nor is it devoid of reason, but most rational, as springing either from that in the mind that is contemplative and inquiring, or else from that part of it that is active and heroic. how many and how great satisfactions either of these affords us, no one can ever relate. but to hint briefly at some of them. we have the historians before us, which, though they find us many and delightful exercises, still leave our desire after truth insatiate and uncloyed with pleasure, through which even lies are not without their grace. yea, tales and poetic fictions, while they cannot gain upon our belief, have something in them that is charming to us. for do but think with yourself, with what a sting we read plato's "atlantic" and the conclusion of the "iliad," and how we hanker and gape after the rest of the tale, as when some beautiful temple or theatre is shut up. but now the informing of ourselves with the truth herself is a thing so delectable and lovely as if our very life and being were for the sake of knowing. and the darkest and grimmest things in death are its oblivion, ignorance, and obscurity. whence, by jove, it is that almost all mankind encounter with those that would destroy the sense of the departed, as placing the very whole of their life, being, and satisfaction solely in the sensible and knowing part of the mind. for even the things that grieve and afflict us yet afford us a sort of pleasure in the hearing. and it is often seen that those that are disordered by what is told them, even to the degree of weeping, notwithstanding require the telling of it. so he in the tragedy who is told, alas i now the very worst must tell, replies, i dread to hear it too, but i must hear. (sophocles, "pedipus tyrannus," 1169, 1170.) but this may seem perhaps a sort of intemperateness of delight in knowing everything, and as it were a stream violently bearing down the reasoning faculty. but now, when a story that hath in it nothing that is troubling and afflictive treats of great and heroic enterprises with a potency and grace of style such as we find in herodotus's grecian and in xenophon's persian history, or in what, inspired by heavenly gods, sage homer sung, or in the travels of euxodus, the foundations and republics of aristotle, and the lives of famous men compiled by aristoxenus; these will not only bring us exceeding much and great contentment, but such also as is clean and secure from repentance. and who could take greater satisfaction either in eating when a-hungry or drinking when a-dry amongst the phaeacians, than in going over ulysses's relation of his own voyage and rambles? and what man could be better pleased with the embraces of the most exquisite beauty, than with sitting up all night to read over what xenophon hath written of panthea, or aristobulus of timoclea, or theopompus of thebe? but now these appertain all solely to the mind. but they chase away from them the delights that accrue from the mathematics also. though the satisfactions we receive from history have in them something simple and equal; but those that come from geometry, astronomy, and music inveigle and allure us with a sort of nimbleness and variety, and want nothing that is tempting and engaging; their figures attracting us as so many charms, whereof whoever hath once tasted, if he be but competently skilled, will run about chanting that in sophocles, i'm mad; the muses with new rage inspire me. i'll mount the hill; my lyre, my numbers fire me. (from the "thamyras" of sophocles, frag. 225) nor doth thamyras break out into poetic raptures upon any other score; nor, by jove, euxodus, aristarchus, or archimedes. and when the lovers of the art of painting are so enamoured with the charmingness of their own performances, that nicias, as he was drawing the evocation of ghosts in homer, often asked his servants whether he had dined or no, and when king ptolemy had sent him threescore talents for his piece, after it was finished, he neither would accept the money nor part with his work; what and how great satisfactions may we then suppose to have been reaped from geometry and astronomy by euclid when he wrote his dioptrics, by philippus when he had perfected his demonstration of the figure of the moon, by archimedes when with the help of a certain angle he had found the sun's diameter to make the same part of the largest circle that that angle made of four right angles, and by apollonius and aristarchus who were the inventors of some other things of the like nature? the bare contemplating and comprehending of all these now engender in the learners both unspeakable delights and a marvellous height of spirit. and it doth in no wise beseem me, by comparing with these the fulsome debauchees of victualling-houses and stews, to contaminate helicon and the muses,- where swain his flock ne'er fed, nor tree by hatchet bled. (euripides, "hippolytus," 75.) but these are the verdant and untrampled pastures of ingenious bees; but those are more like the mange of lecherous boars and he-goats. and though a voluptuous temper of mind be naturally erratic and precipitate, yet never any yet sacrificed an ox for joy that he had gained his will of his mistress; nor did any ever wish to die immediately, might he but once satiate himself with the costly dishes and comfits at the table of his prince. but now eudoxus wished he might stand by the sun, and inform himself of the figure, magnitude, and beauty of that luminary, though he were, like phaethon, consumed by it. and pythagoras offered an ox in sacrifice for having completed the lines of a certain geometric diagram; as apollodotus tells us, when the famed lines pythagoras devised, for which a splendid ox he sacrificed. whether it was that by which he showed that the line that regards the right angle in a triangle is equivalent to the two lines that contain that angle, or the problem about the area of the parabolic section of a cone. and archimedes's servants were forced to hale him away from his draughts, to be anointed in the bath; but he notwithstanding drew the lines upon his belly with his strigil. and when, as he was washing (as the story goes of him), he thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in king hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool, he leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "i have found it;" which after he had several times repeated, he went his way. but we never yet heard of a glutton that exclaimed with such vehemence, "i have eaten," or of an amorous gallant that ever cried, "i have kissed," among the many millions of dissolute debauchees that both this and preceding ages have produced. yea, we abominate those that make mention of their great suppers with too luscious a gust, as men overmuch taken with mean and abject delights. but we find ourselves in one and the same ecstasy with eudoxus, archimedes, and hipparchus; and we readily give assent to plato when he saith of the mathematics, that while ignorance and unskilledness make men despise them, they still thrive notwithstanding by reason of their charmingness, in despite of contempt. these then so great and so many pleasures, that run like perpetual springs and rills, these men decline and avoid; nor will they permit those that put in among them so much as to take a taste of them, but bid them hoist up the little sails of their paltry cock-boats and fly from them. nay, they all, both he and she philosophers, beg and entreat pythocles, for dear epicurus's sake, not to affect or make such account of the sciences called liberal. and when they cry up and defend one apelles, they write of him that he kept himself clean by refraining himself all along from the mathematics. but as to history--to pass over their aversedness to other kinds of compositions--i shall only present you with the words of metrodorus, who in his treatise of the poets writes thus: wherefore let it never disturb you, if you know not either what side hector was of, or the first verses in homer's poem, or again what is in its middle. but that the pleasures of the body spend themselves like the winds called etesian or anniversary, and utterly determine when once age is past its vigor, epicurus himself was not insensible; and therefore he makes it a problematic question, whether a sage philosopher, when he is an old man and disabled for enjoyment, may not still be recreated with having handsome girls to feel and grope him, being not, it seems, of the mind of old sophocles, who thanked god he had at length escaped from this kind of pleasure, as from an untamed and furious master. but, in my opinion, it would be more advisable for these sensual lechers, when they see that age will dry up so many of their pleasures, and that, as euripides saith, dame venus is to ancient men a foe, (euripides, "aeolus," frag. 23.) in the first place to collect and lay up in store, as against a siege, these other pleasures, as a sort of provision that will not impair and decay; that then, after they have celebrated the venereal festivals of life, they may spend a cleanly after-feast in reading over the historians and poets, or else in problems of music and geometry. for it would never have come into their minds so much as to think of these purblind and toothless gropings and spurtings of lechery, had they but learned, if nothing more, to write comments upon homer or euripides, as aristotle, heraclides, and dicaerchus did. but i verily persuade myself that their neglecting to take care for such provisions as these, and finding all the other things they employed themselves in (as they use to say of virtue) but insipid and dry, and being wholly set upon pleasure, and the body no longer supplying them with it, give them occasion to stoop to do things both mean and shameful in themselves and unbecoming their age; as well when they refresh their memories with their former pleasures and serve themselves of old ones (as it were) long since dead and laid up in pickle for the purpose, when they cannot have fresh ones, as when again they offer violence to nature by suscitating and inflaming in their decayed bodies, as in cold embers, other new ones equally senseless, they having not, it seems, their minds stored with any congenial pleasure that is worth the rejoicing at. as to the other delights of the mind, we have already treated of them, as they occurred to us. but their aversedness and dislike to music, that affords us so great delights and such charming satisfactions, a man could not forget if he would, by reason of the inconsistency of what epicurus saith, when he pronounceth in his book called his doubts that his wise man ought to be a lover of public spectacles and to delight above any other man in the music and shows of the bacchanals; and yet he will not admit of music problems or of the critical inquiries of philologists, no, not so much as at a compotation. yea, he advises such princes as are lovers of the muses rather to entertain themselves at their feasts either with some narration of military adventures or with the importune scurrilities of drolls and buffoons, than to engage in disputes about music or in questions of poetry. for this very thing he had the face to write in his treatise of monarchy, as if he were writing to sardanapalus, or to nanarus ruler of babylon. for neither would a hiero nor an attalus nor an archelaus be persuaded to make a euripides, a simonides, a melanippides, a crates, or a diodotus rise up from their tables, and to place such scaramuchios in their rooms as a cardax, an agrias, or a callias, or fellows like thrasonides and thrasyleon, to make people disorder the house with hollowing and clapping. had the great ptolemy, who was the first that formed a consort of musicians, but met with these excellent and royal admonitions, would he not, think you, have thus addressed himself to the samians:- o muse, whence art thou thus maligned? for certainly it can never belong to any athenian to be in such enmity and hostility with the muses. but no animal accurst by jove music's sweet charms can ever love. (pindar, "pythian," i. 25.) what sayest thou now, epicurus? wilt thou get thee up betimes in the morning, and go to the theatre to hear the harpers and flutists play? but if a theophrastus discourse at the table of concords, or an aristoxenus of varieties, or if an aristophanes play the critic upon homer, wilt thou presently, for very dislike and abhorrence, clap both thy hands upon thy ears? and do they not hereby make the scythian king ateas more musical than this comes to, who, when he heard that admirable flutist ismenias, detained then by him as a prisoner of war, playing upon the flute at a compotation, swore he had rather hear his own horse neigh? and do they not also profess themselves to stand at an implacable and irreconcilable defiance with whatever is generous and becoming? and indeed what do they ever embrace or affect that is either genteel or regardable, when it hath nothing of pleasure to accompany it? and would it not far less affect a pleasurable way of living, to abhor perfumes and odors, like beetles and vultures, than to shun and abhor the conversation of learned, critics and musicians? for what flute or harp ready tuned for a lesson, or what sweetest concerts e'er with artful noise, warbled by softest tongue and best tuned voice, ever gave epicurus and metrodorus such content as the disputes and precepts about concerts gave aristotle, theophrastus, hieronymus, and dicaerchus? and also the problems about flutes, rhythms, and harmonies; as, for instance, why the longer of two flutes of the same longitude should speak flatter?--why, if you raise the pipe, will all its notes be sharp; and flat again, if you depress it?--and why, when clapped to another, will it sound flatter; and sharper again, when taken from it?--why also, if you scatter chaff or dust about the orchestra of a theatre, will the sound be deadened?--and why, when one would have set up a bronze alexander for a frontispiece to a stage at pella, did the architect advise to the contrary, because it would spoil the actors' voices? and why, of the several kinds of music, will the chromatic diffuse and the harmonic compose the mind? but now the several humors of poets, their differing turns and forms of style, and the solutions of their difficult places, have conjoined with a sort of dignity and politeness somewhat also that is extremely agreeable and charming; insomuch that to me they seem to do what was once said by xenophon, to make a man even forget the joys of love, so powerful and overcoming is the pleasure they bring us. in this investigation these gentlemen have not the least share, nor do they so much as pretend or desire to have any. but while they are sinking and depressing their contemplative part into the body, and dragging it down by their sensual and intemperate appetites, as by so many weights of lead, they make themselves appear little better than hostlers or graziers that still ply their cattle with hay, straw, or grass, looking upon such provender as the properest and meetest food for them. and is it not even thus they would swill the mind with the pleasures of the body, as hogherds do their swine, while they will not allow it can be gay any longer than it is hoping, experiencing, or remembering something that refers to the body; but will not have it either to receive or seek for any congenial joy or satisfaction from within itself? though what can be more absurd and unreasonable than--when there are two things that go to make up the man, a body and a soul, and the soul besides hath the perogative of governing--that the body should have its peculiar, natural, and proper good, and the soul none at all, but must sit gazing at the body and simper at its passions, as if she were pleased and affected with them, though indeed she be all the while wholly untouched and unconcerned, as having nothing of her own to choose, desire, or take delight in? for they should either pull off the vizor quite, and say plainly that man is all body (as some of them do, that take away all mental being), or, if they will allow us to have two distinct natures, they should then leave to each its proper good and evil, agreeable and disagreeable; as we find it to be with our senses, each of which is peculiarly adapted to its own sensible, though they all very strangely intercommune one with another. now the intellect is the proper sense of the mind; and therefore that it should have no congenial speculation, movement, or affection of its own, the attaining to which should be matter of complacency to it, is the most irrational thing in the world, if i have not, by jove, unwittingly done the men wrong, and been myself imposed upon by some that may perhaps have calumniated them. then i said to him: if we may be your judges, you have not; yea, we must acquit you of having offered them the least indignity; and therefore pray despatch the rest of your discourse with assurance. how! said i, and shall not aristodemus then succeed me, if you are tired out yourself? aristodemus said: with all my heart, when you are as much tired as he is; but since you are yet in your vigor, pray make use of yourself, my noble friend, and don't think to pretend weariness. theon then replied: what is yet behind, i must confess, is very easy; it being but to go over the several pleasures contained in that part of life that consists in action. now themselves somewhere say that there is far more satisfaction in doing than in receiving good; and good may be done many times, it is true, by words, but the most and greatest part of good consists in action, as the very name of beneficence tells us and they themselves also attest. for you may remember, continued he, we heard this gentleman tell us but now what words epicurus uttered, and what letters he sent to his friends, applauding and magnifying metrodorus,--how bravely and like a spark he quitted the city and went down to the port to relieve mithrus the syrian,--and this, though metrodorus did not then do anything at all. what and how great then may we presume the pleasures of plato to have been, when dion by the measures he gave him deposed the tyrant dionysius and set sicily at liberty? and what the pleasures of aristotle, when he rebuilt his native city stagira, then levelled with the ground, and brought back its exiled inhabitants? and what the pleasures of theophrastus and of phidias, when they cut off the tyrants of their respective countries? for what need a man recount to you, who so well know it, how many particular persons they relieved, not by sending them a little wheat or a measure of meal (as epicurus did to some of his friends), but by procuring restoration to the banished, liberty to the imprisoned, and restitution of wives and children to those that had been bereft of them? but a man could not, if he were willing, pass by the sottish stupidity of the man who, though he tramples under foot and vilifies the great and generous actions of themistocles and miltiades, yet writes these very words to his friends about himself: "you have given a very gallant and noble testimony of your care of me in the provision of corn you have made for me, and have declared your affection to me by signs that mount to the very skies." so that, should a man but take that poor parcel of corn out of the great philosopher's epistle, it might seem to be the recital of some letter of thanks for the delivery or preservation of all greece or of the commons of athens. we will now forbear to mention that nature requires very large and chargeable provisions to be made for accomplishing the pleasures of the body; nor can the height of delicacy be had in black bread and lentil pottage. but voluptuous and sensual appetites expect costly dishes, thasian wines, perfumed unguents, and varieties of pastry works, and cakes by female hands wrought artfully, well steep'd in th' liquor of the gold-wing'd bee; and besides all this, handsome young lassies too, such as leontion, boidion, hedia, and nicedion, that were wont to roam about in epicurus's philosophic garden. but now such joys as suit the mind must undoubtedly be grounded upon a grandeur of actions and a splendor of worthy deeds, if men would not seem little, ungenerous, and puerile, but on the contrary, bulky, firm, and brave. but for a man to be elated by happiness, as epicurus is, like sailors upon the festivals of venus, and to vaunt himself that, when he was sick of an ascites, he notwithstanding called his friends together to certain collations and grudged not his dropsy the addition of good liquor, and that, when he called to remembrance the last words of neocles, he was melted with a peculiar sort of joy intermixed with tears,--no man in his right senses would call these true joys or satisfactions. nay, i will be bold to say that, if such a thing as that they call a sardonic or grinning laughter can happen to the mind, it is to be found in these artificial and crying laughters. but if any will needs have them still called by the name of joys and satisfactions, let him but yet think how far they are exceeded by the pleasures that here ensue:- our counsels have proud sparta's glory clipt; and stranger, this is his country rome's great star; and again this, i know not which to guess thee, man or god. now when i set before my eyes the brave achievements of thrasybulus and pelopidas, of aristides engaged at platea and miltiades at marathon, i am here constrained with herodotus to declare it my opinion, that in an active state of life the pleasure far exceeds the glory. and epaminondas herein bears me witness also, when he saith (as is reported of him), that the greatest satisfaction he ever received in his life was that his father and mother had lived to see the trophy set up at leuctra when himself was general. let us then compare with epaminondas's epicurus's mother, rejoicing that she had lived to see her son cooping himself up in a little garden, and getting children in common with polyaenus upon the strumpet of cyzicus. as for metrodorus's mother and sister, how extravagantly rejoiced they were at his nuptials appears by the letters he wrote to his brother in answer to his; that is, out of his own books. nay, they tell us bellowing that they have not only lived a life of pleasure, but also exult and sing hymns in the praise of their own living. though, when our servants celebrate the festivals of saturn or go in procession at the time of the rural bacchanals, you would scarcely brook the hollowing and din they make, if the intemperateness of their joy and their insensibleness of decorum should make them act and speak such things as these:- lean down, boy! why dost sit i let's tope like mad! here's belly-timber store; ne'er spare it, lad. straight these huzza like wild. one fills up drink; another plaits a wreath, and crowns the brink o' th' teeming bowl. then to the verdant bays all chant rude carols in apollo's praise; while one the door with drunken fury smites, till he from bed his loving consort frights. and are not metrodorus's words something like to these when he writes to his brother thus: it is none of our business to preserve the greeks, or to get them to bestow garlands upon us for our wit, but to eat well and drink good wine, timocrates, so as not to offend but pleasure our stomachs. and he saith again, in some other place in the same epistles: how gay and how assured was i, when i had once learned of epicurus the true way of gratifying my stomach; for, believe me, philosopher timocrates, our prime good lies at the stomach. in brief, these men draw out the dimensions of their pleasures like a circle, about the stomach as a centre. and the truth is, it is impossible for those men ever to participate of generous and princely joy, such as enkindles a height of spirit in us and sends forth to all mankind an unmade hilarity and calm serenity, that have taken up a sort of life that is confined, unsocial, inhuman, and uninspired towards the esteem of the world and the love of mankind. for the soul of man is not an abject, little, and ungenerous thing, nor doth it extend its desires (as polyps do their claws) unto eatables only,--yea, these are in an instant of time taken off by the least plenitude, but when its efforts towards what is brave and generous and the honors and caresses that accrue therefrom are now in their consummate vigor this life's duration cannot limit them, but the desire of glory and the love of mankind grasp at whole eternity, and wrestle with such actions and charms as bring with them an ineffable pleasure, and such as good men, though never so fain, cannot decline, they meeting and accosting them on all sides and surrounding them about, while their being beneficial to many occasions joy to themselves. as he passes through the throngs in the city, all gaze upon him as some deity. ("odyssey," viii. 173.) for he that can so affect and move other men as to fill them with joy and rapture, and to make them long to touch him and salute him, cannot but appear even to a blind man to possess and enjoy very extraordinary satisfactions in himself. and hence it comes that such men are both indefatigable and undaunted in serving the public, and we still hear some such words from them thy father got thee for the common good; and let's not give off to benefit mankind. but what need i instance in those that are consummately good? for if to one of the middling rank of bad men, when he is just a-dying, he that hath the power over him (whether his god or prince) should but allow one hour more, upon condition that, after he hath spent that either in some generous action or in sensual enjoyment, he should then presently die, who would in this time choose rather to accompany with lais or drink ariusion wine, than to despatch archias and restore the athenians to their liberties? for my part i believe none would. for i see that even common sword-players, if they are not utter brutes and savages, but greek born, when they are to enter the list, though there be many and very costly dishes set before them, yet take more content in employing their time in commanding their poor wives to some of their friends, yea, and in conferring freedom on their slaves, than in gratifying their stomachs. but should the pleasures of the body be allowed to have some extraordinary matter in them, this would yet be common to men of action and business. for they can eat good meat, and red wine drink, (see "iliad," v. 341.) aye, and entertain themselves with their friends, and perhaps with a greater relish too, after their engagements and hard services,--as did alexander and agesilaus, and (by jove) phocion and epaminondas too,--than these gentlemen who anoint themselves by the fireside, and are gingerly rocked about the streets in sedans. yea, those make but small account of such pleasures as these, as being comprised in those greater ones. for why should a man mention epaminondas's denying to sup with one, when he saw the preparations made were above the man's estate, but frankly saying to his friend, "i thought you had intended a sacrifice and not a debauch," when alexander himself refused queen ada's cooks, telling her he had better ones of his own, to wit, travelling by night for his dinner, and a light dinner for his supper, and when philoxenus writing to him about some handsome boys, and desiring to know of him whether he would have him buy them for him, was within a small matter of being discharged his office for it? and yet who might better have them than he? but as hippocrates saith that of two pains the lesser is forgot in the greater, so the pleasures that accrue from action and the love of glory, while they cheer and refresh the mind, do by their transcendency and grandeur obliterate and extinguish the inferior satisfactions of the body. if, then, the remembering of former good things (as they affirm) be that which most contributes to a pleasurable living, not one of us will then credit epicurus when he, tells us that, while he was dying away in the midst of the strongest agonies and distempers, he yet bore himself up with the memory of the pleasures he formerly enjoyed. for a man may better see the resemblance of his own face in a troubled deep or a storm, than a smooth and smiling remembrance of past pleasure in a body tortured with such lancing and rending pains. but now the memories of past actions no man can put from him that would. for did alexander, think you, (or indeed could he possibly) forget the fight at arbela? or pelopidas the tyrant leontiadas? or themistocles the engagement at salamis? for the athenians to this very day keep an annual festival for the battle at marathon, and the thebans for that at leuctra; and so, by jove, do we ourselves (as you very well know) for that which daiphantus gained at hyampolis, and all phocis is filled with sacrifices and public honors. nor is there any of us that is better satisfied with what himself hath either eaten or drunk than he is with what they have achieved. it is very easy then to imagine what great content, satisfaction, and joy accompanied the authors of these actions in their lifetime, when the very memory of them hath not yet after five hundred years and more lost its rejoicing power. the truth is, epicurus himself allows there are some pleasures derived from fame. and indeed why should he not, when he himself had such a furious lechery and wriggling after glory as made him not only to disown his masters and scuffle about syllables and accents with his fellow-pedant democritus (whose principles he stole verbatim), and to tell his disciples there never was a wise man in the world besides himself, but also to put it in writing how colotes performed adoration to him, as he was one day philosophizing, by touching his knees, and that his own brother neocles was used from a child to say, "there neither is, nor ever was in the world, a wiser man than epicurus," and that his mother had just so many atoms within her as, when coming together, must have produced a complete wise man? may not a man then--as callicratidas once said of the athenian admiral conon, that he whored the sea as well say of epicurus that he basely and covertly forces and ravishes fame, by not enjoying her publicly but ruffling and debauching her in a corner? for as men's bodies are oft necessitated by famine, for want of other food, to prey against nature upon themselves, a like mischief to this does vainglory create in men's minds, forcing them, when they hunger after praise and cannot obtain it from other men, at last to commend themselves. and do not they then that stand so well affected towards applause and fame themselves own they cast away very extraordinary pleasures, when they decline, magistrature, public offices, and the favor and confidences of princes, from whom democritus once said the grandest blessings of human life are derived? for he will never induce any mortal to believe, that he that could so highly value and please himself with the attestation of his brother neocles and the adoration of his friend colotes would not, were he clapped by all the greeks at the olympiads, go quite out of his wits and even hollow for joy, or rather indeed be elated in the manner spoken of by sophocles, puffed like the down of a gray-headed thistle. if it be a pleasing thing then to be of a good fame, it is on the contrary afflictive to be of an ill one; and it is most certain that nothing in the world can be more infamous than want of friendship, idleness, atheism, debauchery, and negligence. now these are looked upon by all men except themselves as inseparable companions of their party. but unjustly, some one may say. be it so then; for we consider not now the truth of the charge, but what fame and reputation they are of in the world. and we shall forbear at present to mention the many books that have been written to defame them, and the blackening decrees made against them by several republics; for that would look like bitterness. but if the answers of oracles, the providence of the gods, and the tenderness and affection of parents to their issue,--if civil policy, military order, and the office of magistracy be things to be looked upon as deservedly esteemed and celebrated, it must of necessity then be allowed also, that they that tell us it is none of their business to preserve the greeks, but they must eat and drink so as not to offend but pleasure their stomachs, are base and ignominious persons, and that their being reputed such must needs extremely humble them and make their lives untoward to them, if they take honor and a good name for any part of their satisfaction. when theon had thus spoken, we thought good to break up our walk to rest us awhile (as we were wont to do) upon the benches. nor did we continue any long space in our silence at what was spoken; for zeuxippus, taking his hint from what had been said, spake to us: who will make up that of the discourse which is yet behind? for it hath not yet received its due conclusion; and this gentleman, by mentioning divination and providence, did in my opinion suggest as much to us; for these people boast that these very things contribute in no way to the providing of their lives with pleasure, serenity, and assurance; so that there must be something said to these too. aristodemus subjoined then and said: as to pleasure, i think there hath been enough said already to evince that, supposing their doctrine to be successful and to attain its own design, it yet doth but ease us of fear and a certain superstitious persuasion but helps us not to any comfort or joy from the gods at all; nay, while it brings us to such a state as to be neither disquieted nor pleased with them, it doth but render us in the same manner affected towards them as we are towards the scythians or hyrcanians, from whom we look for neither good nor harm. but if something more must be added to what hath been already spoken, i think i may very well take it from themselves. and in the first place, they quarrel extremely with those that would take away all sorrowing, weeping, and sighing for the death of friends, and tell them that such unconcernedness as arrives to an insensibility proceeds from some other worse cause, to wit, inhumanity, excessive vainglory, or prodigious fierceness, and that therefore it would be better to be a little concerned and affected, yea, and to liquor one's eyes and be melted, with other pretty things of the like kind, which they use artificially to affect and counterfeit, that they may be thought tender and loving-hearted people. for just in this manner epicurus expressed himself upon the occasion of the death of hegesianax, when he wrote to dositheus the father and to pyrson the brother of the deceased person; for i fortuned very lately to run over his epistles. and i say, in imitation of them, that atheism is no less an evil than inhumanity and vainglory, and into this they would lead us who take away with god's anger the comfort we might derive from him. for it would be much better for us to have something of the unsuiting passion of dauntedness and fear conjoined and intermixed with our sentiments of a deity, than while we fly from it, to leave ourselves neither hope, content, nor assurance in the enjoyment of our good things nor any recourse to god in our adversity and misfortunes. we ought, it is true, to remove superstition from the persuasion we have of the gods, as we would the gum from our eyes; but if that be impossible, we must not root out and extinguish with it the belief which the most have of the gods; nor is that a dismaying and sour one either, as these gentlemen feign, while they libel and abuse the blessed providence, representing her as a witch or as some fell and tragic fury. yea, i must tell you, there are some in the world that fear god in an excess, for whom yet it would not be better not so to fear him. for, while they dread him as a governor that is gentle to the good and severe to the bad, and are by this one fear, which makes them not to need many others, freed from doing ill and brought to keep their wickedness with them in quiet and (as it were) in an enfeebled languor, they come hereby to have less disquiet than those that indulge the practice of it and are rash and daring in it, and then presently after fear and repent of it. now that disposition of mind which the greater and ignorant part of mankind, that are not utterly bad, are of towards god, hath, it is very true, conjoined with the regard and honor they pay him, a kind of anguish and astonished dread, which is also called superstition; but ten thousand times more and greater is the good hope, the true joy, that attend it, which both implore and receive the whole benefit of prosperity and good success from the gods only. and this is manifest by the greatest tokens that can be; for neither do the discourses of those that wait at the temples, nor the good times of our solemn festivals, nor any other actions or sights more recreate and delight us than what we see and do about the gods ourselves, while we assist at the public ceremonies, and join in the sacred balls, and attend at the sacrifices and initiations. for the mind is not then sorrowful depressed, and heavy, as if she were approaching certain tyrants or cruel torturers; but on the contrary, where she is most apprehensive and fullest persuaded the divinity is present, there she most of all throws off sorrows, tears, and pensiveness, and lets herself loose to what is pleasing and agreeable, to the very degree of tipsiness, frolic, and laughter. in amorous concerns, as the poet said once, when old man and old wife think of love's fires, their frozen breasts will swell with new desires; but now in the public processions and sacrifices not only the old man and the old wife, nor yet the poor and mean man only, but also the dusty thick-legged drab that turns the mill, and household-slaves and day-laborers, are strangely elevated and transported with mirth and joviality. rich men as well as princes are used at certain times to make public entertainments and to keep open houses; but the feasts they make at the solemnities and sacrifices, when they now apprehend their minds to approach nearest the divinity, have conjoined with the honor and veneration they pay him a much more transcending pleasure and satisfaction. of this, he that hath renounced god's providence hath not the least share; for what recreates and cheers us at the festivals is not the store of good wine and roast meat, but the good hope and persuasion that god is there present and propitious to us, and kindly accepts of what we do. from some of our festivals we exclude the flute and garland; but if god be not present at the sacrifice, as the solemnity of the banquet, the rest is but unhallowed, unfeast-like, and uninspired. indeed the whole is but ungrateful and irksome to such a man; for he asks for nothing at all, but only acts his prayers and adorations for fear of the public, and utters expressions contradictory to his philosophy. and when he sacrifices, he stands by and looks upon the priest as he kills the offering but as he doth upon a butcher; and when he hath done, he goes his way, saying with menander, to bribe the gods i sacrificed my best, but they ne'er minded me nor my request. for so epicurus would have us arrange ourselves, and neither to envy nor to incur the hatred of the common herd by doing ourselves with disgust what others do with delight. for, as evenus saith, no man can love what he is made to do. for which very reason they think the superstitious are not pleased in their minds but in fear while they attend at the sacrifices and mysteries; though they themselves are in no better condition, if they do the same things our of fear, and partake not either of as great good hope as the others do, but are only fearful and uneasy lest they should come to be discovered as cheating and abusing the public, upon whose account it is that they compose the books they write about the gods and the divine nature, involved, with nothing truly said. but all around enveloped; hiding out of fear the real opinions they contain. and now, after the two former ranks of ill and common men, we will in the third place consider the best sort and most beloved of the gods, and what great satisfactions they receive from their clean and generous sentiments of the deity, to wit, that he is the prince of all good things and the parent of all things brave, and can no more do an unworthy thing than he can be made to suffer it. for he is good, and he that is good can upon no account fall into envy, fear, anger, or hatred; neither is it proper to a hot thing to cool, but to heat; nor to a good thing to do harm. now anger is by nature at the farthest distance imaginable from complacency, and spleenishness from placidness, and animosity and turbulence from humanity and kindness. for the latter of these proceed from generosity and fortitude, but the former from impotency and baseness. the deity is not therefore constrained by either anger or kindnesses; but that is because it is natural to it to be kind and aiding, and unnatural to be angry and hurtful. but the great jove, whose mansion is in heaven, is the first that descends downwards and orders all things and takes the care of them. but of the other gods one is surnamed the distributor, and another the mild, and a third the averter of evil. and according to pindar, phoebus was by mighty jove designed of all the gods to be to man most kind. and diogenes saith, that all things are the gods', and friends have all things common, and good men are the gods' friends; and therefore it is impossible either that a man beloved of the gods should not be happy, or that a wise and a just man should not be beloved of the gods. can you think then that they that take away providence need any other chastisement, or that they have not a sufficient one already, when they root out of themselves such vast satisfaction and joy as we that stand thus affected towards the deity have? metrodorus, polyaenus, and aristobulus were the confidence and rejoicing of epicurus; the better part of whom he all his lifetime either attended upon in their sicknesses or lamented at their deaths. as did lycurgus, when he was saluted by the delphic prophetess, dear friend to heavenly jove and all the gods. and did socrates when he believed that a certain divinity was used out of kindness to discourse him, and pindar when he heard pan sing one of the sonnets he had composed, but a little rejoice, think you? or phormio, when he thought he had treated castor and pollux at his house? or sophocles, when he entertained aesculapius, as both he himself believed, and others too, that thought the same with him by reason of the apparition that then happened? what opinion hermogenes had of the gods is well worth the recounting in his very own words. "for these gods," saith he, "who know all things and can do all things, are so friendly and loving to me that, because they take care of me, i never escape them either by night or by day, wherever i go or whatever i am about. and because they know beforehand what issue everything will have, they signify it to me by sending angels, voices, dreams, and presages." very amiable things must those be that come to us from the gods; but when these very things come by the gods too, this is what occasions vast satisfaction and unspeakable assurance, a sublimity of mind and a joy that, like a smiling brightness, doth as it were gild over our good things with a glory. but now those that are persuaded otherwise obstruct the very sweetest part of their prosperity, and leave themselves nothing to turn to in their adversity; but when they are in distress, look only to this one refuge and port, dissolution and insensibility; just as if in a storm or tempest at sea, some one should, to hearten the rest, stand up and say to them: gentlemen, the ship hath never a pilot in it, nor will castor and pollux come themselves to assuage the violence of the beating waves or to lay the swift careers of the winds; yet i can assure you there is nothing at all to be dreaded in all this, for the vessel will be immediately swallowed up by the sea, or else will very quickly fall off and be dashed in pieces against the rocks. for this is epicurus's way of discourse to persons under grievous distempers and excessive pains. dost thou hope for any good from the gods for thy piety? it is thy vanity; for the blessed and incorruptible being is not constrained by either angers or kindnesses. dost thou fancy something better after this life than what thou hast here? thou dost but deceive thyself; for what is dissolved hath no sense, and that which hath no sense is nothing to us. aye; but how comes it then, my good friend, that you bid me eat and be merry? why, by jove, because he that is in a great storm cannot be far off a shipwreck; and your extreme danger will soon land you upon death's strand. though yet a passenger at sea, when he is got off from a shattered ship, will still buoy himself up with some little hope that he may drive his body to some shore and get out by swimming; but now the poor soul, according to these men's philosophy, is ne'er more seen without the hoary main. ("odyssey," v. 410.) yea, she presently evaporates, disperses, and perishes, even before the body itself; so that it seems her great and excessive rejoicing must be only for having learned this one sage and divine maxim, that all her misfortunes will at last determine in her own destruction, dissolution, and annihilation. but (said he, looking upon me) i should be impertinent, should i say anything upon this subject, when we have heard you but now discourse so fully against those that would persuade us that epicurus's doctrine about the soul renders men more disposed and better pleased to die than plato's doth. zeuxippus therefore subjoined and said: and must our present debate be left then unfinished because of that? or shall we be afraid to oppose that divine oracle to epicurus? no, by no means, i said; and empedocles tells us that what's very good claims to be heard twice. therefore we must apply ourselves again to theon; for i think he was present at our former discourse; and besides, he is a young man, and needs not fear being charged by these young gentlemen with having a bad memory. then theon, like one constrained, said: well then, if you will needs have me to go on with the discourse, i will not do as you did, aristodemus. for you were shy of repeating what this gentleman spoke, but i shall not scruple to make use of what you have said; for i think indeed you did very well divide mankind into three ranks; the first of wicked and very bad men, the second of the vulgar and common sort, and the third of good and wise men. the wicked and bad sort then, while they dread any kind of divine vengeance and punishment at all, and are by this deterred from doing mischief, and thereby enjoy the greater quiet, will live both in more pleasure and in less disturbance for it. and epicurus is of opinion that the only proper means to keep men from doing ill is the fear of punishments. so that we should cram them with more and more superstition still, and raise up against them terrors, chasms, frights, and surmises, both from heaven and earth, if their being amazed with such things as these will make them become the more tame and gentle. for it is more for their benefit to be restrained from criminal actions by the fear of what comes after death, than to commit them and then to live in perpetual danger and fear. as to the vulgar sort, besides their fear of what is in hell, the hope they have conceived of an eternity from the tales and fictions of the ancients, and their great desire of being, which is both the first and the strongest of all, exceed in pleasure and sweet content of mind that childish dread. and therefore, when they lose their children, wives, or friends, they would rather have them be somewhere and still remain, though in misery, than that they should be quite destroyed, dissolved, and reduced to nothing. and they are pleased when they hear it said of a dying person, that he goes away or departs, and such other words as intimate death to be the soul's remove and not destruction. and they sometimes speak thus: but i'll even there think on my dearest friend; ("iliad," xxii. 390.) and thus:- what's your command to hector? let me know; and to your dear old priam shall i go? (euripides, "hecuba," 422.) and (there arising hereupon an erroneous deviation) they are the better pleased when they bury with their departed friends such arms, implements, or clothes as were most familiar to them in their lifetime; as minos did the cretan flutes with glaucus, made of the shanks of a dead brindled fawn. and if they do but imagine they either ask or desire anything of them, they are glad when they give it them. thus periander burnt his queen's attire with her, because he thought she had asked for it and complained she was a-cold. nor doth an aeacus, an ascalaphus, or an acheron much disorder them whom they have often gratified with balls, shows, and music of every sort. but now all men shrink from that face of death which carries with it insensibility, oblivion, and extinction of knowledge, as being dismal, grim, and dark. and they are discomposed when they hear it said of any one, he is perished, or he is gone or he is no more; and they show great uneasiness when they hear such words as these:- go to the wood-clad earth he must, and there lie shrivelled into dust, and ne'er more laugh or drink, or hear the charming sounds of flute or lyre; and these:- but from our lips the vital spirit fled returns no more to wake the silent dead. ("iliad," ix. 408.) wherefore they must needs cut the very throats of them that shall with epicurus tell them, we men were born once for all, and we cannot be born twice, but our not being must last forever. for this will bring them to slight their present good as little, or rather indeed as nothing at all compared with everlastingness, and therefore to let it pass unenjoyed and to become wholly negligent of virtue and action, as men disheartened and brought to a contempt of themselves, as being but as it were of one day's continuance and uncertain, and born for no considerable purpose. for insensibility, dissolution, and the conceit that what hath no sense is nothing to us, do not at all abate the fear of death, but rather help to confirm it; for this very thing is it that nature most dreads,- but may you all return to mould and wet, (ibid. vii. 99.) to wit, the dissolution of the soul into what is without knowledge or sense. now, while epicurus would have this to be a separation into atoms and void, he doth but further cut off all hope of immortality; to compass which (i can scarce refrain from saying) all men and women would be well contented to be worried by cerberus, and to carry water into the tub full of holes, so they might but continue in being and not be exterminated. though (as i said before) there are not very many that stand in fear of these things, they being but the tenets of old women and the fabulous stories of mothers and nurses,--and even they that do fear them yet believe that certain rites of initiation and purgation will relieve them, by which after they are cleansed they shall play and dance in hell forever, in company with those that have the privilege of a bright light, clear air, and the use of speech,--yet to be deprived of living disturbs all both young and old. we impatient love the light that shines on earth, (euripides, "hippolytus," 193) as euripides saith. nor are we easy or without regret when we hear this:- him speaking thus th' eternal brightness leaves, where night the wearied steeds of day receives. and therefore it is very plain that with the belief of immortality they take away the sweetest and greatest hopes the vulgar sort have. and what shall we then think they take away from the good and those that have led pious and just lives, who expect no ill after dying, but on the contrary most glorious and divine things? for, in the first place, athletes are not used to receive the garland before they have performed their exercises, but after they have contested and proved victorious; in like manner is it with those that are persuaded that good men have the prize of their conquests after this life is ended; it is marvellous to think to what a pitch of grandeur their virtue raises their spirits upon the contemplation of those hopes, among the which this is one, that they shall one day see those men that are now insolent by reason of their wealth and power, and that foolishly flout at their betters, undergo just punishment. in the next place, none of the lovers of truth and the contemplation of being have here their fill of them; they having but a watery and puddled reason to speculate with, as it were, through the fog and mist of the body; and yet they still look upwards like birds, as ready to take their flight to the spacious and bright region, and endeavor to make their souls expedite and light from things mortal, using philosophy as a study for death. thus i account death a truly great and accomplished good thing; the soul being to live there a real life, which here lives not a waking life, but suffers things most resembling dreams. if then (as epicurus saith) the remembrance of a dead friend be a thing every way complacent; we may easily from thence imagine how great a joy they deprive themselves of who think they do but embrace and pursue the phantoms and shades of their deceased familiars, that have in them neither knowledge nor sense, but who never expect to be with them again, or to see their dear father and dear mother and sweet wife, nor have any hopes of that familiarity and dear converse they have that think of the soul with pythagoras, plato, and homer. now what their sort of passion is like to was hinted at by homer, when he threw into the midst of the soldiers, as they were engaged, the shade of aeneas, as if he had been dead, and afterwards again presented his friends with him himself, coming alive and well, as brisk as ever; at which, he saith, they all were overjoyed. ("iliad," v. 514 and 515) and should not we then,--when reason shows us that a real converse with persons departed this life may be had, and that he that loves may both feel and be with the party that affects and loves him,--relinquish these men that cannot so much as cast off all those airy shades and outside barks for which they are all their time in lamentation and fresh afflictions? moreover, they that look upon death as the commencement of another and better life, if they enjoy good things, are the better pleased with them, as expecting much greater hereafter; but if they have not things here to their minds, they do not much grumble at it, but the hopes of those good and excellent things that are after death contain in them such ineffable pleasures and expectances, that they wipe off and wholly obliterate every defect and every offence from the mind, which, as on a road or rather indeed in a short deviation out of the road, bears whatever befalls it with great ease and indifference. but now, as to those to whom life ends in insensibility and dissolution,--death brings to them no removal of evils, though it is afflicting in both conditions, yet is it more so to those that live prosperously than to such as undergo adversity? for it cuts the latter but from an uncertain hope of doing better hereafter; but it deprives the former of a certain good, to wit, their pleasurable living. and as those medicinal potions that are not grateful to the palate but yet necessary give sick men ease, but rake and hurt the well; just so, in my opinion, doth the philosophy of epicurus; it promises to those that live miserably no happiness in death, and to those that do well an utter extinction and dissolution of the mind, while it quite obstructs the comfort and solace of the grave and wise and those that abound with good things, by throwing them down from a happy living into a deprivation of both life and being. from hence then it is manifest, that the contemplation of the loss of good things will afflict us in as great a measure as either the firm hope or present enjoyment of them delights us. yea, themselves tell us, that the thought of future dissolution leaves them one most assured and complacent good, freedom from anxious surmises of incessant and endless evils, and that epicurus's doctrine effects this by stopping the fear of death through the soul's dissolution. if then deliverance from the expectation of infinite evils be a matter of greatest complacence, how comes it not to be afflictive to be bereft of eternal good things and to miss of the highest and most consummate felicity? for not to be can be good for neither condition, but is on the contrary both against nature and ungrateful to all that have a being. but those being eased of the evils of life through the evils of death have, it is very true, the want of sense to comfort them, while they, as it were, make their escape from life. but, on the other hand, they that change from good things to nothing seem to me to have the most dismaying end of all, it putting a period to their happiness. for nature doth not fear insensibility as the entrance upon some new thing, but because it is the privation of our present good things. for to declare that the destruction of all that we call ours toucheth us not is untrue for it toucheth us already by the very anticipation. and insensibility afflicts not those that are not, but those that are, when they think what damage they shall sustain by it in the loss of their being and in being suffered never to emerge from nothingness. wherefore it is neither the dog cerberus nor the river cocytus that has made our fear of death boundless; but the threatened danger of not being, representing it as impossible for such as are once extinct to shift back again into being. for we cannot be born twice, and our not being must last forever; as epicurus speaks. for if our end be in not being, and that be infinite and unalterable, then hath privation of good found out an eternal evil, to wit, a never ending insensibleness. herodotus was much wiser, when he said that god, having given men a taste of the delights of life, seems to be envious, (herodotus, vii. 46) and especially to those that conceit themselves happy, to whom pleasure is but a bait for sorrow, they being but permitted to taste of what they must be deprived of. for what solace or fruition or exultation would not the perpetual injected thought of the soul's being dispersed into infinity, as into a certain huge and vast ocean, extinguish and quell in those that found their amiable good and beatitude in pleasure? but if it be true (as epicurus thinks it is) that most men die in very acute pain, then is the fear of death in all respects inconsolable; it bringing us through evils unto a deprivation of good. and yet they are never wearied with their brawling and dunning of all persons to take the escape of evil for a good, no longer to repute privation of good for an evil. but they still confess what we have asserted, that death hath in it nothing of either good hope or solace, but that all that is complacent and good is then wholly extinguished; at which time those men look for many amiable, great, and divine things, that conceive the minds of men to be unperishable and immortal, or at least to go about in certain long revolutions of times, being one while upon earth and another while in heaven, until they are at last dissolved with the universe and then, together with the sun and moon, sublimed into an intellective fire. so large a field and one of so great pleasures epicurus wholly cuts off, when he destroys (as hath been said) the hopes and graces we should derive from the gods, and by that extinguishes both in our speculative capacity the desire of knowledge, and in our active the love of glory, and confines and abases our nature to a poor narrow thing, and that not cleanly neither, to wit, the content the mind receives by the body, as if it were capable of no higher good than the escape of evil. end of one-------that a philosopher ought chiefly to converse with great men. the resolution which you have taken to enter into the friendship and familiarity of sorcanus, that by the frequent opportunities of conversing with him you may cultivate and improve a soil which gives such early promises of a plentiful harvest, is an undertaking which will not only oblige his relations and friends, but rebound very much to the advantage of the public; and (notwithstanding the peevish censures of some morose or ignorant people) it is so far from being an argument of an aspiring vainglorious temper, that it shows you to be a lover of virtue and good manners, and a zealous promoter of the common interest of mankind. they themselves are rather to be accused of an indirect but more vehement sort of ambition, who would not upon any terms be found in the company or so much as be seen to give a civil salute to a person of quality. for how unreasonable would it be to enforce a well-disposed young gentleman, and one who needs the direction of a wise governor, to such complaints as these: "would that i might become from a pericles or a cato to a cobbler like simon or a grammarian like dionysius, that i might like them talk with such a man as socrates, and sit by him." so far, i am sure, was aristo of chios from being of their humor, that when he was censured for exposing and prostituting the dignity of philosophy by his freedom to all comers, he answered, that he could wish that nature had given understanding to wild beasts, that they too might be capable of being his hearers. shall we then deny that privilege to men of interest and power, which this good man would have communicated (if it had been possible) to the brute beasts? but these men have taken a false notion of philosophy, they make it much like the art of statuary, whose business it is to carve out a lifeless image in the most exact figure and proportion, and then to raise it upon its pedestal, where it is to continue forever. the true philosophy is of a quite different nature; it is a spring and principle of motion wherever it comes; it makes men active and industrious, it sets every wheel and faculty a-going, it stores our minds with axioms and rules by which to make a sound judgment, it determines the will to the choice of what is honorable and just; and it wings all our faculties to the swiftest prosecution of it. it is accompanied with an elevation and nobleness of mind, joined with a coolness and sweetness of behavior, and backed with a becoming assurance and inflexible resolution. and from this diffusiveness of the nature of good it follows, that the best and most accomplished men are inclined to converse with persons of the highest condition. indeed a physician if he have any good nature and sense of honor, would be more ready to cure an eye which is to see and to watch for a great many thousands, than that of a private person; how much more then ought a philosopher to form and fashion, to rectify and cure the soul of such a one, who is (if i may so express it) to inform the body politic,--who is to think and understand for so many others, to be in so great measure the rule of reason, the standard of law, and model of behavior, by which all the rest will square and direct their actions? suppose a man to have a talent at finding out springs and contriving of aqueducts (a piece of skill for which hercules and other of the ancients are much celebrated in history), surely he could not so satisfactorily employ himself in sinking a well or deriving water to some private seat or contemptible cottage, as in supplying conduits to some fair and populous city, in relieving an army just perishing with thirst, or in refreshing and adorning with fountains and cool streams the beautiful gardens of some glorious monarch. there is a passage of homer very pertinent to this purpose, in which he calls minos [greek text], which, as plato interprets it, signifies the disciple and companion of jupiter. for it were beneath his dignity indeed to teach private men, such as care only for a family or indulge their useless speculations; but kings are scholars worthy the tuition of a god, who, when they are well advised, just, good, and magnanimous, never fail to procure the peace and prosperity of all their subjects. the naturalists tell us that the eryngium hath such a property with it, that if one of the flock do but taste it, all the rest will stand stock still in the same place till the shepherd hath taken it out of its mouth. such swiftness of action does it have, pervading and inserting itself in everything near it, as if it were fire. the effects of philosophy, however, are different according to the difference of inclinations in men. if indeed it lights on one who loves a dull and inactive sort of life, that makes himself the centre and the little conveniences of life the circumference of all his thoughts, such a one does contract the sphere of her activity, so that having only made easy and comfortable the life of a single person, it fails and dies with him; but when it finds a man of a ruling genius, one fitted for conversation and able to grapple with the difficulties of public business, if it once possess him with principles of honesty, honor, and religion, it takes a compendious method, by doing good to one, to oblige a great part of mankind. such was the effect of the intercourse of anaxagoras with pericles, of plato with dion, and of pythagoras with the principal statesmen of all italy. cato himself took a voyage, when he had the concern of an expedition lying upon him, to see and hear athenodorus; and scipio sent for panaetius, when he was commissioned by the senate "to take a survey alike of the habits of men good and bad," ("odyssey," xvii. 487.) as posidonius says. now what a pretty sort of return would it have been in panaetius to send word back,--"if indeed you were in a private capacity, john a nokes or john a stiles, that had a mind to get into some obscure corner or cell, to state cases and resolve syllogisms, i should very gladly have accepted your invitation; but now, because you are the son of paulus aemilius who was twice consul, and grandson of that scipio who was surnamed from his conquest of hannibal and africa, i cannot with honor hold any conversation with you!" the objections which they bring from the two kinds of discourse, one of which is mental, the other like the gift of mercury expressed in words or interpretative of the former, are so frivolous, that they are best answered by laughter or silence; and we may quote the old saying, "i knew this before theognis arose." however, thus much shall be added, that the end of them both is friendship,--in the first case with ourselves, in the second with another. for he that hath attained to virtue by the methods of philosophy hath his mind all in tune and good temper; he is not struck with those reproaches of conscience, which cause the acutest sense of pain and are the natural punishments of our follies; but he enjoys (the great prerogative of a good man) to be always easy and in amity with himself. no factious lusts reason's just power control, nor kindle civil discord in his soul. his passion does not stand in defiance to his reason, nor do his reasonings cross and thwart one the other, but he is always consistent with himself. but the very joys of wicked men are tumultuary and confused, like those who dwell in the borders of two great empires at variance, always insecure, and in perpetual alarms; whilst a good man enjoys an uninterrupted peace and serenity of mind, which excels the other not only in duration, but in sense of pleasure too. as for the other sort of converse, that which consists in expression of itself to others, pindar says very well, that it was not mercenary in old time, nor indeed is it so now; but by the baseness and ambition of a few it is made use of to serve their poor secular interests. for if the poets represent venus herself as much offended with those who make a trade and traffic of the passion of love, how much more reasonably may we suppose that urania and clio and calliope have an indignation against those who set learning and philosophy to sale? certainly the gifts and endowments of the muses should be privileged from such mean considerations. if indeed some have made fame and reputation one of the ends of their studies, they used it only as an instrument to get friends; since we find by common observation that men only praise those whom they love. if they sought its own praise, they were as much mistaken as ixion when he embraced a cloud instead of juno; for there is nothing so fleeting, so changeable, and so inconstant as popular applause; it is but a pompous shadow, and hath no manner of solidity and duration in it. but a wise man, if he design to engage in business and matters of state, will so far aim at fame and popularity as that he may be better enabled to benefit others; for it is a difficult and very unpleasant task to do good to those who are disaffected to our persons. it is the good opinion men have of us which disposes men to give credit to our doctrine. as light is a greater good to those who see others by it than to those who only are seen, so is honor of a greater benefit to those who are sensible of it than to those whose glory is admired. but even one who withdraws himself from the noise of the world, who loves privacy and indulges his own thoughts, will show that respect to the good word of the people which hippolytus did to venus,--though he abstain from her mysteries, he will pay his devotions at a distance; (euripides, "hippolytus," 102.) but he will not be so cynical and sullen as not to hear with gladness the commendations of virtuous men like himself; he will neither engage himself in a restless pursuit of wealth, interest, or honor, nor will he on the other hand be so rustic and insensible as to refuse them in a moderate degree, when they fairly come in his way; in like manner he will not court and follow handsome and beautiful youth, but will rather choose such as are of a teachable disposition, of a gentle behavior, and lovers of learning. the charms and graces of youth will not make a philosopher shy of their conversation, when the endowments of their minds are answerable to the features of their bodies. the case is the same when greatness of place and fortune concur with a well disposed person; he will not therefore forbear loving and respecting such a one, nor be afraid of the name of a courtier, nor think it a curse that such attendance and dependence should be his fate. they that try most dame venus to despise do sin as much as they who her most prize. (from the "veiled hippolytus" of euripides, frag. 431.) the application is easy to the matter in hand. a philosopher therefore, if he is of a retired humor, will not avoid such persons; while one who generously designs his studies for the public advantage will cheerfully embrace their advances of friendship, will not bore them to hear him, will lay aside his sophistic terms and distinctions, and will rejoice to discourse and pass his time with them when they are disposed. i plough the wide berecynthian fields, full six days' journey long, (from the "niobe" of aechylus, frag. 153.) says one boastingly in the poet; the same man, if he were as much a lover of mankind as of husbandry, would much rather bestow his pains on such a farm, the fruits of which would serve a great number, than to be always dressing the olive-yard of some cynical malcontent, which, when all was done, would scarce yield oil enough to dress a salad or to supply his lamp in the long winter evenings. epicurus himself, who places happiness in the profoundest quiet and sluggish inactivity, as the only secure harbor from the storms of this troublesome world, could not but confess that it is both more noble and delightful to do than to receive a kindness; (almost the same words with those of our saviour, it is more blessed to give than to receive. so that a man can scarcely be a true epicurean without practising some of the maxims of christianity.) for there is nothing which produces so humane and genuine a sort of pleasure as that of doing good. he who gave the names to the three graces was intelligent, for they all mean delectation and joy, (aglaia, euphrosyne, and thalia.) and these feelings surely are far greater and purer in the giver. this is so evidently true, that we all receive good turns blushing and with some confusion, but we are always gay and well pleased when we are conferring one. if then it is so pleasant to do good to a few, how are their hearts dilated with joy who are benefactors to whole cities, provinces, and kingdoms? and such benefactors are they who instil good principles into those upon whom so many millions do depend. on the other hand, those who debauch the minds of great men--as sycophants, false informers, and flatterers worse than both, manifestly do--are the centre of all the curses of a nation, as men not only infuse deadly poison into the cistern of a private house, but into the public springs of which so many thousands are to drink. the people therefore laughed at the parasites of callias, whom, as eupolis says, neither with fire nor brass nor steel could prevent from supping with him; but as for the favorites of those execrable tyrants apollodorus, phalaris, and dionysius, they racked them, they flayed them alive, they roasted them at slow fires, looked on them as the very pests of society and disgraces of human nature; for to debauch a simple person is indeed an ill thing, but to corrupt a prince is an infinite mischief. in like manner, he who instructs an ordinary man makes him to pass his life decently and with comfort; but he who instructs a prince, by correcting his errors and clearing his understanding, is a philosopher for the public, by rectifying the very mould and model by which whole nations are formed and regulated. it is the custom of all nations to pay a peculiar honor and deference to their priests; and the reason of it is, because they do not only pray for good things for themselves, their own families and friends, but for whole communities, for the whole state of mankind. yet we are not so fond as to think that the priests make the gods to be givers of good things, or inspire a vein of beneficence into them; but they only make their supplications to a being which of itself is inclinable to answer their requests. but in this a good tutor hath the privilege above the priests,--he effectually renders a prince more disposed to actions of justice, of moderation, and mercy, and therefore hath a greater satisfaction of mind when he reflects upon it. for my own part, i cannot but think that an ordinary mechanic--for instance, a maker of musical instruments--would be much more attentive and pleased at his work, and if his harp would be touched by the famous amphion, and in his hand to serve for the builder of thebes, or if that thales had bespoke it, who was so great a master by the force of his music he pacified a popular tumult amongst the lacedaemonians. a good-natured shipwright would ply his work more heartily, if he were constructing the rudder for the admiral galley of themistocles when he fought for the liberty of greece, or of pompey when he went on his expedition against the pirates: what ecstasy of delight then must a philosopher be in, when he reflects that his scholar is a man of authority, a prince or great potentate, that he is employed in so public a work, giving laws to him who is to give laws to a whole nation, who is to punish vice, and to reward the virtuous with riches and honor? the builder of the argo certainly would have been mightily pleased, if he had known what noble mariners were to row in his ship, and that at last she should be translated into heaven; and a carpenter would not be half so much pleased to make a chariot or plough, as to cut the tablets on which solon's laws were to be engraved. in like manner the discourses and rules of philosophy, being once deeply stamped and imprinted on the minds of great personages, will stick so close, that the prince shall seem no other than justice incarnate and animated law. this was the design of plato's voyage into sicily,--he hoped that the lectures of his philosophy would serve for laws to dionysius, and bring his affairs again into a good posture. but the soul of that unfortunate prince was like paper scribbled all over with the characters of vice; its piercing and corroding quality had stained quite through, and sunk into the very substance of his soul. whereas, such persons must be taken when they are on the run, if they are to absorb useful discourses. end of two-------sentiments concerning nature with which philosophers were delighted book i. it being our determination to discourse of natural philosophy, we judge it necessary, in the first place and chiefly, to divide the body of philosophy into its proper members, so that we may know what is that which is called philosophy, and what part of it is physical, or the explanation of natural things. the stoics affirm that wisdom is the knowledge of things human and divine; that philosophy is the pursuit of that art which is convenient to this knowledge; that virtue is the sole and sovereign art which is thus convenient; and this distributes itself into three general parts--natural, moral, and logical. by which just reason (they say) philosophy is tripartite; of which one natural, the other moral, the third logical. the natural when our inquiries are concerning the world and all things contained in it; the ethical is the employment of our minds in those things which concern the manners of man's life; the logical (which they also call dialectical) regulates our conversation with others in speaking. aristotle, theophrastus, and after them almost all the peripatetics give the same division of philosophy. it is absolutely requisite that the complete person he contemplator of things which have a being, and the practiser of those thing which are decent; and this easily appears by the following instances. if the question be proposed, whether the sun, which is so conspicuous to us, be informed of a soul or inanimate, he that makes this disquisition is the thinking man; for he proceeds no farther than to consider the nature of that thing which is proposed. likewise, if the question be propounded, whether the world be infinite, or whether beyond the system of this world there is any real being, all these things are the objects about which the understanding of man is conversant. but if these be the questions,--what measures must be taken to compose the well-ordered life of man, what are the best methods to govern and educate children, or what are the exact rules whereby sovereigns may command and establish laws,--all these queries are proposed for the sole end of action, and the man skilled therein is the moral and practical man. chapter i. what is nature? since we have undertaken to make a diligent search into nature, i cannot but conclude it necessary to declare what nature is. it is very absurd to attempt a discourse of the essence of natural things, and not to understand what is the power and sphere of nature. if aristotle be credited, nature is the principle of motion and rest, in that thing in which it exists as a principle and not by accident. for all things that are conspicuous to our eyes, which are neither fortuitous nor necessary, nor have a divine original, nor acknowledge any such like cause, are called natural and enjoy their proper nature. of this sort are earth, fire, water, air, plants, animals; to these may be added all things produced from them, such as showers, hail, thunders, hurricanes, and winds. all these confess they had a beginning, none of these were from eternity, but had something as the origin of them; and likewise animals and plants have a principle whence they are produced. but nature, which in all these things hath the priority, is not only the principle of motion but of repose; whatsoever enjoys the principle of motion, the same has a possibility to find a dissolution. therefore on this account it is that nature is the principle of motion and rest. chapter ii. what is the difference between a principle and an element? the followers of aristotle and plato conclude that elements are discriminated from principles. thales the milesian supposeth that a principle and the elements are one and the same thing, but it is evident that they vastly differ one from another. for the elements are things compounded; but we do pronounce that principles admit not of a composition, nor are the effects of any other being. those which we call elements are earth, water, air, and fire. but we call those principles which have nothing prior to them out of which they are produced; for otherwise not these themselves, but rather those things whereof they are produced, would be the principles. now there are some things which have a pre-existence to earth and water, from which they are begotten; to wit, matter, which is without form or shape; then form, which we call [greek omitted] (actuality); and lastly, privation. thales therefore is most in error, by affirming that water is both an element and a principle. chapter iii. what are principles? thales the milesian doth affirm that water is the principle from whence all things in the universe spring. this person appears to be the first of philosophers; from him the ionic sect took its denomination, for there are many families and successions amongst philosophers. after he had professed philosophy in egypt, when he was very old, he returned to miletus. he pronounced, that all things had their original from water, and into water all things are resolved. his first ground was, that whatsoever was the prolific seed of all animals was a principle, and that is moist; so that it is probable that all things receive their original from humidity. his second reason was, that all plants are nourished and fructified by that thing which is moist, of which being deprived they wither away. thirdly, that that fire of which the sun and stars are made is nourished by watery exhalations,--yea, and the world itself; which moved homer to sing that the generation of it was from water:- the ocean is of all things the kind genesis. (iliad, xiv. 246.) anaximander, who himself was a milesian, assigns the principle of all things to the infinite, from whence all things flow, and into the same are corrupted; hence it is that infinite worlds are framed, and those dissolve again into that whence they have their origin. and thus he farther proceeds, for what other reason is there of an infinite but this, that there may be nothing deficient as to the generation or subsistence of what is in nature? there is his error, that he doth not acquaint us what this infinite is, whether it be air, or water, or earth, or any other such like body. besides he is mistaken, in that, giving us the material cause, he is silent as to the efficient cause of beings; for this thing which he makes his infinite can be nothing but matter; but operation cannot come about in the sphere of matter, except an efficient cause be annexed. anaximenes his fellow-citizen pronounceth, that air is the principle of all beings; from it all receive their original, and into it all return. he affirms that our soul is nothing but air; it is that which constitutes and preserves; the whole world is invested with spirit and air. for spirit and air are synonymous. this person is in this deficient, in that he concludes that of pure air, which is a simple body and is made of one only form, all animals are composed. it is not possible to think that a single principle should be the matter of all things, from whence they receive their subsistence; besides this there must be an operating cause. silver (for example) is not of itself sufficient to frame a drinking cup; an operator also is required, which is the silversmith. the like may be applied to vessels made of wood, brass, or any other material. anaxagoras the clazomenian asserted homoeomeries (or parts similar or homogeneous) to be the original cause of all beings; it seemed to him impossible that anything could arise of nothing or be dissolved into nothing. let us therefore instance in nourishment, which appears simple and uniform, such as bread which we owe to ceres and water which we drink. of this very nutriment, our hair, our veins, our arteries, nerves, bones, and all our other parts are nourished. these things thus being performed, it must be granted that the nourishment which is received by us contains all those things by which these of us are produced. in it there are those particles which are producers of blood, bones, nerves, and all other parts; these particles (he thought) reason discovers for us. for it is not necessary that we should reduce all things under the objects of sense; for bread and water are fitted to the senses, yet in them there are those particles latent which are discoverable only by reason. it being therefore plain that there are particles in the nourishment similar to what is produced by it, he terms these homogeneous parts, averring that they are the principles of beings. matter is according to him these similar parts, and the efficient cause is a mind, which orders all things that have an existence. thus he begins his discourse: "all things were confused one among another; but mind divided and brought them to order." in this he is to be commended, that he yokes together matter and an intellectual agent. archelaus the son of apollodorus, the athenian, pronounceth, that the principles of all things have their origin from an infinite air rarefied or condensed. air rarefied is fire, condensed is water. these philosophers, the followers of thales, succeeding one another, made up that sect which takes to itself the denomination of the ionic. pythagoras the samian, the son of mnesarchus, from another origin deduces the principles of all things; it was he who first called philosophy by its name. he thought the first principles to be numbers, and those symmetries in them which he styles harmonies; and the composition of both he terms elements, called geometrical. again, he places unity and the indefinite binary number amongst the principles. one of these principles ends in an efficient and forming cause, which is mind, and that is god; the other to the passive and material part, and that is the visible world. moreover, the nature of number (he saith) consists in the ten; for all people, whether grecians or barbarians, reckon from one to ten, and thence return to one again. farther he avers the virtue of ten consists in the quaternion; the reason whereof is this,--if any person start from one, and add numbers so as to take in the quaternary, he shall complete the number ten; if he passes the four, he shall go beyond the ten; for one, two, three, and four being added up together make ten. the nature of numbers, therefore, if we regard the units, abideth in the ten; but if we regard its power, in the four. therefore the pythagoreans say that their most sacred oath is by that god who delivered to them the quaternary. by th' founder of the sacred number four, eternal nature's font and source, they swore. of this number the soul of man is composed; for mind, knowledge, opinion, and sense are the four that complete the soul, from which all sciences, all arts, all rational faculties derive themselves. for what our mind perceives, it perceives after the manner of a thing that is one, the soul itself being a unity; as for instance, a multitude of persons are not the object of our sense nor are comprehended by us, for they are infinite; our understanding gives the general concept of a man, in which all individuals agree. the number of individuals is infinite; the generic or specific nature of all being is a unit, or to be apprehended as one only thing; from this one conception we give the genuine measures of all existence, and therefore we affirm that a certain class of beings are rational and discoursive. but when we come to give the nature of a horse, it is that animal which neighs; and this being common to all horses, it is manifest that the understanding, which hath such like conceptions, is in its nature unity. it follows that the number called the infinite binary must be science; in every demonstration or belief belonging to science, and in every syllogism, we draw that conclusion which is in dispute from those propositions which are by all granted, by which means another proposition is obtained from the premises. the comprehension of these we call knowledge; for which reason science is the binary number. but opinion is the ternary; for that rationally follows from comprehension. the objects of opinion are many things, and the ternary number denotes a multitude, as "thrice happy grecians"; for which reason pythagoras admits the ternary. this sect of philosophers is called the italic, by reason pythagoras started his school in italy; his hatred of the tyranny of polycrates enforced him to abandon his native country samos. heraclitus and hippasus of metapontum suppose that fire gives the origination to all beings, that they all flow from fire, and in fire they all conclude; for of fire when first quenched the world was constituted. the first part of the world, being most condensed and contracted within itself, made the earth; but part of that earth being loosened and made thin by fire, water was produced; afterwards this water being exhaled and rarefied into vapors became air; after all this the world itself, and all other corporeal beings, shall be dissolved by fire in the universal conflagration. by them therefore it appears that fire is what gives beginning to all things, and is that in which all things receive their period. epicurus the son of neocles, the athenian, his philosophical sentiments being the same with those of democritus, affirms that the principles of all being are bodies which are only perceptible by reason; they admit not of a vacuity, nor of any original, but being of a self-existence are eternal and incorruptible; they are not liable to any diminution, they are indestructible, nor is it possible for them to receive any transformation of parts, or admit of any alterations; of these reason is only the discoverer; they are in a perpetual motion in vacuity, and by means of the empty space; for the vacuum itself is infinite, and the bodies that move in it are infinite. those bodies acknowledge these three accidents, figure, magnitude, and gravity. democritus acknowledged but two, magnitude and figure. epicurus added the third, to wit, gravity; for he pronounced that it is necessary that bodies receive their motion from that impression which springs from gravity, otherwise they could not be moved. the figures of atoms cannot be incomprehensible, but they are not infinite. these figures are neither hooked nor trident-shaped nor ring-shaped, such figures as these being exposed to collision; but the atoms are impassible, impenetrable; they have indeed figures of their own, which are conceived only by reason. it is called an atom, by reason not of its smallness but of its indivisibility; in it no vacuity, no passible affection is to be found. and that there is an atom is perfectly clear; for there are elements which have a perpetual duration, and there are animals which admit of a vacuity, and there is a unity. empedocles the agrigentine, the son of meton, affirms that there are four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, and two powers which bear the greatest command in nature, concord and discord, of which one is the union, the other the division of beings. thus he sings, hear first the four roots of all created things:- bright shining jove, juno that beareth life, pluto beneath the earth, and nestis who doth with her tears water the human fount. by jupiter he understands fire and ether, by juno that gives life he means the air, by pluto the earth, by nestis and the spring of all mortals (as it were) seed and water. socrates the son of sophroniscus, and plato son of ariston, both natives of athens, entertain the same opinion concerning the universe; for they suppose three principles, god, matter, and the idea. god is the universal understanding; matter is that which is the first substratum, accommodated for the generation and corruption of beings; the idea is an incorporeal essence, existing in the cogitations and apprehensions of god; for god is the soul and mind of the world. aristotle the son of nichomachus, the stagirite, constitutes three principles; entelecheia (which is the same with form), matter, and privation. he acknowledges four elements, and adds a certain fifth body, which is ethereal and not obnoxious to mutation. zeno son of mnaseas, the native of citium, avers these to be principles, god and matter, the first of which is the efficient cause, the other the passible and receptive. four more elements he likewise confesses. chapter iv. how was this world composed in that order and after that manner it is? the world being broken and confused, after this manner it was reduced into figure and composure as now it is. the insectible bodies or atoms, by a wild and fortuitous motion, without any governing power, incessantly and swiftly were hurried one amongst another, many bodies being jumbled together; upon this account they have a diversity in the figures and magnitude. these therefore being so jumbled together, those bodies which were the greatest and heaviest sank into the lowest place; they that were of a lesser magnitude, being round, smooth, and slippery, these meeting with those heavier bodies were easily broken into pieces, and were carried into higher places. but when that force whereby these variously particles figured particles fought with and struck one another, and forced the lighter upwards, did cease, and there was no farther power left to drive them into superior regions, yet they were wholly hindered from descending downwards, and were compelled to reside in those places capable to receive them; and these were the heavenly spaces, unto which a multitude of these small bodies were hurled, and these being thus shivered fell into coherence and mutual embraces, and by this means the heaven was produced. then a various and great multitude of atoms enjoying the same nature, as it is before asserted, being hurried aloft, did form the stars. the multitude of these exhaled bodies, having struck and broke the air in shivers, forced a passage through it; this being turned into wind invested the stars, as it moved, and whirled them about, by which means to this present time that circulary motion which these stars have in the heavens is maintained. much after the same manner the earth was made; for by those little particles whose gravity made them to reside in the lower places the earth was formed. the heaven, fire, and air were constituted of those particles which were carried aloft. but a great deal of matter remaining in the earth, this being condensed by the driving of the winds and the air from the stars, every little part and form of it was compressed, which created the element of water; but this being fluidly disposed did run into those places which were hollow, and these places were those that were capable to receive and protect it; or the water, subsisting by itself, did make the lower places hollow. after this manner the principal parts of the world were constituted. chapter v. whether the universe is one single thing. the stoics pronounce that the world is one thing, and this they say is the universe and is corporeal. but empedocles's opinion is, that the world is one; yet by no means the system of this world must be styled the universe, but that it is a small part of it, and the remainder is inactive matter. what to plato seems the truest he thus declares, that there is one world, and that world is the universe; and this he endeavors to evince by three arguments. first, that the world could not be complete and perfect, if it did not within itself include all beings. secondly, nor could it give the true resemblance of its original and exemplar, if it were not the one only begotten thing. thirdly, it could not be incorruptible, if there were any being out of its compass to whose power it might be obnoxious. but to plato it may be thus returned. first, that the world is not complete and perfect, nor doth it contain all things within itself. and if man is a perfect being, yet he doth not encompass all things. secondly, that there are many exemplars and originals of statues, houses, and pictures. thirdly, how is the world perfect, if anything beyond it is possible to be moved about it? but the world is not incorruptible, nor can it be so conceived, because it had an original. to metrodorus it seems absurd, that in a large field one only stalk should grow, and in an infinite space one only world exist; and that this universe is infinite is manifest by this, that there is an infinity of causes. now if this world be finite and the causes producing it infinite, it follows that the worlds likewise be infinite; for where all causes concur, there the effects also must appear, let the causes be what they will, either atoms or elements. chapter vi. whence did men obtain the knowledge of the existence and essence of a deity? the stoics thus define the essence of a god. it is a spirit intellectual and fiery, which acknowledges no shape, but is continually changed into what it pleases, and assimilates itself to all things. the knowledge of this deity they first received from the pulchritude of those things which so visibly appeared to us; for they concluded that nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the world. that the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful variety of those stars which adorn this world. the world is spherical; the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being round itself it hath its parts like itself. (on this account, according to plato, the understanding, which is the most sacred part of man, is in the head.) the color of it is most beauteous; for it is painted with blue; which, though little blacker than purple, yet hath such a shining quality, that by reason of the vehement efficacy of its color it cuts through such a space of air; whence it is that at so great a distance the heavens are to be contemplated. and in this very greatness of the world the beauty of it appears. view all things: that which contains the rest carries a beauty with it, as an animal or a tree. also things which are visible to us accomplish the beauty of the world. the oblique circle called the zodiac in heaven is with different images painted and distinguished:- there's cancer, leo, virgo, and the claws; scorpio, arcitenens, and capricorn; amphora, pisces, then the ram, and bull; the lovely pair of brothers next succeed. (from aratus.) there are a thousand others that give us the suitable reflections of the beauty of the world. thus euripides:- the starry splendor of the skies, the beautiful and varied work of that wise creator, time. from this the knowledge of a god is conveyed to man; that the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, being carried under the earth, rise again in their proper color, magnitude, place, and times. therefore they who by tradition delivered to us the knowledge and veneration of the gods did it by these three manner of ways:--first, from nature; secondly, from fables; thirdly, from the testimony supplied by the laws of commonwealths. philosophers taught the natural way; poets, the fabulous; and the political way is to be had from the constitutions of each commonwealth. all sorts of this learning are distinguished into these seven parts. the first is from things that are conspicuous, and the observation of those bodies which are in places superior to us. to men the heavenly bodies that are so visible did give the knowledge of the deity; when they contemplated that they are the causes of so great an harmony, that they regulate day and night, winter and summer, by their rising and setting, and likewise considered those things which by their influences in the earth do receive a being and do likewise fructify. it was manifest to men that the heaven was the father of those things, and the earth the mother; that the heaven was the father is clear, since from the heavens there is the pouring down of waters, which have their spermatic faculty; the earth the mother, because she receives them and brings forth. likewise men considering that the stars are running (greek omitted) in a perpetual motion, that the sun and moon give us the stimulus to view and contemplate (greek omitted), they call them all gods (greek omitted). in the second and third place, they thus distinguished the deities into those which are beneficial and those that are injurious to mankind. those which are beneficial they call jupiter, juno, mercury, ceres; those who are mischievous the dirae, furies, and mars. these, which threaten dangers and violence, men endeavor to appease and conciliate by sacred rites. the fourth and the fifth order of gods they assign to things and passions; to passions, love, venus, and desire; the deities that preside over things, hope, justice, and eunomia. the sixth order of deities are the ones made by the poets; hesiod, willing to find out a father for those gods that acknowledge an original, invented their progenitors,- hyperion, coeus, and iapetus, with creius: (hesiod, "theogony," 134.) upon which account this is called the fabulous. the seventh rank of the deities added to the rest are those which, by their beneficence to mankind, were honored with a divine worship, though they were born of mortal race; of this sort were hercules, castor and pollux, and bacchus. these are reputed to be of a human species; for of all beings that which is divine is most excellent, and man amongst all animals is adorned with the greatest beauty, is also the best, being adorned by virtue above the rest because of the gift of intellect: therefore it was thought that those who were admirable for excellence should resemble that which is the best and most beautiful. chapter vii. what is god? some of the philosophers, such as diagoras the melian, theodorus the cyrenean, and euemerus the tegeatan, did deny unanimously that there were any gods; and callimachus the cyrenean discovered his mind concerning euemerus in these iambic verses, thus writing:- to th' ante-mural temple flock apace, where he that long ago composed of brass great jupiter, thrasonic old bald pate, now scribbles impious books,--a boastful ass! meaning books which prove there are no gods. euripides the tragedian durst not openly declare his sentiment; the court of areopagus terrified him. yet he sufficiently manifested his thoughts by this method. he presented in his tragedy sisyphus, the first and great patron of this opinion, and introduced himself as one agreeing with him:- disorder in those days did domineer, and brutal power kept the world in fear. afterwards by the sanction of laws wickedness was suppressed; but by reason that laws could prohibit only public villanies, yet could not hinder many persons from acting secret impieties, some wise persons gave this advice, that we ought to blind truth with lying disguises, and persuade men that there is a god:- there's an eternal god does hear and see and understand every impiety; though it in dark recess or thought committed be. but this poetical fable ought to be rejected, he thought, along with callimachus, who thus saith:- if you believe a god, it must be meant that you conceive this god omnipotent. but god cannot do everything; for, if it were so, then a god could make snow black, and the fire cold, and him that is in a posture of sitting to be upright, and so on the contrary. the brave-speaking plato pronounceth that god formed the world after his own image; but this smells rank of the old dotages, old comic writers would say; for how did god, casting his eye upon himself, frame this universe? or how can god be spherical, and be inferior to man? anaxagoras avers that bodies did consist from all eternity, but the divine intellect did reduce them into their proper orders, and effected the origination of all beings. but plato did not suppose that the primary bodies had their consistence and repose, but that they were moved confusedly and in disorder; but god, knowing that order was better than confusion, did digest them into the best methods. both these were equally peccant; for both suppose god to be the great moderator of human affairs and for that cause to have formed this present world; when it is apparent that an immortal and blessed being, replenished with all his glorious excellencies, and not at all obnoxious to any sort of evil, but being wholly occupied with his own felicity and immortality, would not employ himself with the concerns of men; for certainly miserable is the being which, like a laborer or artificer, is molested by the troubles and cares which the forming and governing of this world must give him. add to this, that the god whom these men profess was either not at all existing before this present world (when bodies were either reposed or in a disordered motion), or that at that time god did either sleep, or else was in a constant watchfulness, or that he did neither of these. now neither the first nor the second can be entertained, because they suppose god to be eternal; if god from eternity was in a continual sleep, he was in an eternal death,--and what is death but an eternal sleep?--but no sleep can affect a deity, for the immortality of god and alliance to death are vastly different. but if god was in a continual vigilance, either there was something wanting to make him happy, or else his beatitude was perfectly complete; but according to neither of these can god be said to be blessed; not according to the first, for if there be any deficiency there is no perfect bliss; not according to the second, for, if there be nothing wanting to the felicity of god, it must be a needless enterprise for him to busy himself in human affairs. and how can it be supposed that god administers by his own providence human concerns, when to vain and trifling persons prosperous things happen, to great and high adverse? agamemnon was both a virtuous prince, for warlike acts renowned, ("iliad," iii. 179.) and by an adulterer and adulteress was vanquished and perfidiously slain. hercules, after he had freed the life of man from many things that were pernicious to it, perished by the witchcraft and poison of deianira. thales said that the intelligence of the world was god. anaximander concluded that the stars were heavenly deities. democritus said that god, being a globe of fire, is the intelligence and the soul of the world. pythagoras says that, of his principles, unity is god; and the good, which is indeed the nature of a unity, is mind itself; but the binary number, which is infinite, is a daemon, and evil,--about which the multitude of material beings and this visible world are related. socrates and plato agree that god is that which is one, hath its original from its own self, is of a singular subsistence, is one only being perfectly good; all these various names signifying goodness do all centre in mind; hence god is to be understood as that mind and intellect, which is a separate idea, that is to say, pure and unmixed of all matter, and not mingled with anything subject to passions. aristotle's sentiment is, that god hath his residence in superior regions, and hath placed his throne in the sphere of the universe, and is a separate idea; which sphere is an ethereal body, which is by him styled the fifth essence or quintessence. for there is a division of the universe into spheres, which are contiguous by their nature but appear to reason to be separated; and he concludes that each of the spheres is an animal, composed of a body and soul; the body of them is ethereal, moved orbicularly, the soul is the rational form, which is unmoved, and yet is the cause that the sphere is in motion. the stoics affirm that god is a thing more common and obvious, and is a mechanic fire which every way spreads itself to produce the world; it contains in itself all seminal virtues, and by this means all things by a fatal necessity were produced. this spirit, passing through the whole world, received different names from the mutations in the matter through which it ran in its journey. god therefore is the world, the stars, the earth, and (highest of all) the mind in the heavens. in the judgment of epicurus all the gods are anthropomorphites, or have the shape of men; but they are perceptible only by reason, for their nature admits of no other manner of being apprehended, their parts being so small and fine that they give no corporeal representations. the same epicurus asserts that there are four other natural beings which are immortal: of this sort are atoms, the vacuum, the infinite, and the similar parts; and these last are called homoeomeries and likewise elements. chapter viii. of those that are called geniuses and heroes having treated of the essence of the deities in a just order, it follows that we discourse of daemons and heroes. thales, pythagoras, plato, and the stoics do conclude that daemons are essences endowed with souls; that the heroes are the souls separated from their bodies, some are good, some are bad; the good are those whose souls are good, the evil those whose souls are wicked. all this is rejected by epicurus. chapter ix. of matter. matter is that first being which is substrate for generation, corruption, and all other alterations. the disciples of thales and pythagoras, with the stoics, are of opinion that matter is changeable, mutable, convertible, and sliding through all things. the followers of democritus aver that the vacuum, the atom, and the incorporeal substance are the first beings, and not obnoxious to passions. aristotle and plato affirm that matter is of that species which is corporeal, void of any form, species, figure, and quality, but apt to receive all forms, that she may be the nurse, the mother, and origin of all other beings. but they that do say that water, earth, air, and fire are matter do likewise say that matter cannot be without form, but conclude it is a body; but they that say that individual particles and atoms are matter do say that matter is without form. chapter x. of ideas. an idea is a being incorporeal, not subsisting by itself, but gives figure unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of its phenomena. socrates and plato conjecture that these ideas are beings separate from matter, subsisting in the understanding and imagination of the deity, that is, of mind. aristotle accepted forms and ideas; but he doth not believe them separated from matter, or patterns of the things god has made. those stoics, that are of the school of zeno, profess that ideas are nothing else but the conceptions of our own mind. chapter xi. of causes. a cause is that by which anything is produced, or by which anything is effected. plato gives this triple division of causes,--the material, the efficient, and the final cause; the principal cause he judges to be the efficient, which is the mind and intellect. pythagoras and aristotle judge the first causes are incorporeal beings, but those that are causes by accident or participation become corporeal substances; by this means the world is corporeal. the stoics grant that all causes are corporeal, inasmuch as they are physical. chapter xii. of bodies. a body is that being which hath these three dimensions, breadth, depth, and length;--or a bulk which makes a sensible resistance;--or whatsoever of its own nature possesseth a place. plato saith that it is neither heavy nor light in its own nature, when it exists in its own place; but being in the place where another should be, then it has an inclination by which it tends to gravity or levity. aristotle saith that, if we simply consider things in their own nature, the earth only is to be judged heavy, and fire light; but air and water are on occasions heavy and at other times light. the stoics think that of the four elements two are light, fire and air; two ponderous, earth and water; that which is naturally light doth by its own nature, not by any inclination, recede from its own centre; but that which is heavy doth by its own nature tend to its centre; for the centre is not a heavy thing in itself. epicurus thinks that bodies are not limited; but the first bodies, which are simple bodies, and all those composed of them, all acknowledge gravity; that all atoms are moved, some perpendicularly, some obliquely; some are carried aloft either by immediate impulse or with vibrations. chapter xiii. of those things that are least in nature. empedocles, before the four elements, introduceth the most minute bodies which resemble elements; but they did exist before the elements, having similar parts and orbicular. heraclitus brings in the smallest fragments, and those indivisible. chapter xiv. of figures. a figure is the exterior appearance, the circumscription, and the boundary of a body. the pythagoreans say that the bodies of the four elements are spherical, fire being in the supremest place only excepted, whose figure is conical. chapter xv. of colors. color is the visible quality of a body. the pythagoreans called color the external appearance of a body. empedocles, that which is consentaneous to the passages of the eye. plato, that they are fires emitted from bodies, which have parts harmonious for the sight. zeno the stoic, that colors are the first figurations of matter. the pythagoreans, that colors are of four sorts, white and black, red and pale; and they derive the variety of colors from the mixtures of the elements, and that seen in animals also from the variety of food and the air. chapter xvi. of the division of bodies. the disciples of thales and pythagoras grant that all bodies are passible and divisible into infinity. others hold that atoms and indivisible parts are there fixed, and admit not of a division into infinity. aristotle, that all bodies are potentially but not actually divisible into infinity. chapter xvii. how bodies are mixed and contemperated one with another. the ancient philosophers held that the mixture of elements proceeded from the alteration of qualities; but the disciples of anaxagoras and democritus say it is done by apposition. empedocles composes the elements of still minuter bulks, those which are the most minute and may be termed the element of elements. plato assigns three bodies (but he will not allow these to be elements, nor properly so called), air, fire, and water, which are mutable into one another; but the earth is mutable into none of these. chapter xviii. of a vacuum. all the natural philosophers from thales to plato rejected a vacuum. empedocles says that there is nothing of a vacuity in nature, nor anything superabundant. leucippus, democritus, demetrius, metrodorus, epicurus, that the atoms are in number infinite; and that a vacuum is infinite in magnitude. the stoics, that within the compass of the world there is no vacuum, but beyond it the vacuum is infinite. aristotle, that the vacuum beyond the world is so great that the heaven has liberty to breathe into it, for the heaven is fiery. chapter xix. of place. plato, to define place, calls it that thing which in its own bosom receives forms and ideas; by which metaphor he denotes matter, being (as it were) a nurse or receptacle of beings. aristotle, that it is the ultimate superficies of the circumambient body, contiguous to that which it doth encompass. chapter xx. of space. the stoics and epicureans make a place, a vacuum, and space to differ. a vacuum is that which is void of anything that may be called a body; place is that which is possessed by a body; a space that which is partly filled with a body, as a cask with wine. chapter xxi. of time. in the sense of pythagoras, time is that sphere which encompasses the world. plato says that it is a movable image of eternity, or the interval of the world's motion. eratosthenes, that it is the solar motion. chapter xxii. of the substance and nature of time. plato says that the heavenly motion is time. most of the stoics that motion is time. most philosophers think that time had no commencement; plato, that time had only in intelligence a beginning. chapter xxiii. of motion. plato and pythagoras say that motion is a difference and alteration in matter. aristotle, that it is the actual operation of that which may be moved. democritus, that there is but one sort of motion, and it is that which is vibratory. epicurus, that there are two species of motion, one perpendicular, and the other oblique. herophilus, that one species of motion is obvious only to reason, the other to sense. heraclitus utterly denies that there is anything of quiet or repose in nature; for that is the state of the dead; one sort of motion is eternal, which he assigns to beings eternal, the other perishable, to those things which are perishable. chapter xxiv. of generation and corruption. parmenides melissus, and zeno deny that there are any such things as generation and corruption, for they suppose that the universe is unmovable. empedocles, epicurus, and other philosophers that combine in this, that the world is framed of small corporeal particles meeting together, affirm that corruption and generation are not so properly to be accepted; but there are conjunctions and separations, which do not consist in any distinction according to their qualities, but are made according to quantity by coalition or disjunction. pythagoras, and all those who take for granted that matter is subject to mutation, say that generation and corruption are to be accepted in their proper sense, and that they are accomplished by the alteration, mutation, and dissolution of elements. chapter xxv. of necessity. thales says that necessity is omnipotent, and that it exerciseth an empire over everything. pythagoras, that the world is invested by necessity. parmenides and democritus, that there is nothing in the world but what is necessary, and that this same necessity is otherwise called fate, justice, providence, and the architect of the world. chapter xxvi. of the nature of necessity. but plato distinguisheth and refers some things to providence, others to necessity. empedocles makes the nature of necessity to be that cause which employs principles and elements. democritus makes it to be a resistance, impulse, and force of matter. plato sometimes says that necessity is matter; at other times, that it is the habitude or respect of the efficient cause towards matter. chapter xxvii. of destiny or fate. heraclitus, who attributes all things to fate, makes necessity to be the same thing with it. plato admits of a necessity in the minds and the acts of men, but yet he introduceth a cause which flows from ourselves. the stoics, in this agreeing with plato, say that necessity is a cause invincible and violent; that fate is the ordered complication of causes, in which there is an intexture of those things which proceed from our own determination, so that certain things are to be attributed to fate, others not. chapter xxviii. of the nature of fate. according to heraclitus, the essence of fate is a certain reason which penetrates the substance of all being; and this is an ethereal body, containing in itself that seminal faculty which gives an original to every being in the universe. plato affirms that it is the eternal reason and the eternal law of the nature of the world. chrysippus, that it is a spiritual faculty, which in due order doth manage and rule the universe. again, in his book styled the "definitions," that fate is the reason of the world, or that it is that law whereby providence rules and administers everything that is in the world; or it is that reason by which all things have been, all things are, and all things will be produced. the stoics say that it is a chain of causes, that is, it is an order and connection of causes which cannot be resisted. posidonius, that it is a being the third in degree from jupiter; the first of beings is jupiter, the second nature, and the third fate. chapter xxix. of fortune. plato says, that it is an accidental cause and a casual consequence in things which proceed from the election and counsel of men. aristotle, that it is an accidental cause in those things done by an impulse for a certain end; and this cause is uncertain and unstable: there is a great deal of difference betwixt that which flows from chance and that which falls out by fortune; for that which is fortuitous allows also chance, and belongs to things practical; but what is by chance cannot be also by fortune, for it belongs to things without action: fortune, moreover, pertains to rational beings, but chance to rational and irrational beings alike, and even to inanimate things. epicurus, that it is a cause not always consistent, but various as to persons, times, and manners. anaxagoras and the stoics, that it is that cause which human reason cannot comprehend; for there are some things which proceed from necessity, some things from fate, some from choice and free-will, some from fortune, some from chance. chapter xxx. of nature. empedocles affirms that nature is nothing else but the mixture and separation of the elements; for thus he writes in the first book of his natural philosophy:- nature gives neither life nor death, mutation makes us die or breathe. the elements first are mixed, then each do part: this nature is in mortal speech. anaxagoras is of the same opinion, that nature is coalition and separation, that is, generation and corruption. book ii. having finished my dissertation concerning principles and elements and those things which chiefly appertain to them, i will turn my pen to discourse of those things which are produced by them, and will take my beginning from the world, which contains and encompasseth all beings. chapter i. of the world. pythagoras was the first philosopher that called the world [greek omitted], from the order and beauty of it; for so that word signifies. thales and his followers say the world is one. democritus, epicurus, and their scholar metrodorus affirm that there are infinite worlds in an infinite space, for that infinite vacuum in its whole extent contains them. empedocles, that the circle which the sun makes in its motion circumscribes the world, and that circle is the utmost bound of the world. seleucus, that the world knows no limits. diogenes, that the universe is infinite, but this world is finite. the stoics make a difference between that which is called the universe, and that which is called the whole world;--the universe is the infinite space considered with the vacuum, the vacuity being removed gives the right conception of the world; so that the universe and the world are not the same thing. chapter ii. of the figure of the world. the stoics say that the figure of the world is spherical, others that it is conical, others oval. epicurus, that the figure of the world may be globular, or that it may admit of other shapes. chapter iii. whether the world be an animal. democritus, epicurus, and those philosophers who introduced atoms and a vacuum, affirm that the world is not an animal, nor governed by any wise providence, but that it is managed by a nature which is void of reason. all the other philosophers affirm that the world is informed with a soul, and governed by reason and providence. aristotle is excepted, who is somewhat different; he is of opinion, that the whole world is not acted by a soul in every part of it, nor hath it any sensitive, rational, or intellectual faculties, nor is it directed by reason and providence in every part of it; of all which the heavenly bodies are made partakers, for the circumambient spheres are animated and are living beings; but those things which are about the earth are void of those endowments; and though those terrestrial bodies are of an orderly disposition, yet that is casual and not primogenial. chapter iv. whether the world is eternal and incorruptible. pythagoras [and plato], agreeing with the stoics, affirm that the world was framed by god, and being corporeal is obvious to the senses, and in its own nature is obnoxious to destruction; but it shall never perish, it being preserved by the providence of god. epicurus, that the world had a beginning, and so shall have an end, as plants and animals have. xenophanes, that the world never had a beginning, is eternal and incorruptible. aristotle, that the part of the world which is sublunary is subject to change, and there terrestrial beings find a decay. chapter v. whence does the world receive its nutriment? aristotle says that, if the world be nourished, it will likewise be dissolved; but it requires no aliment, and will therefore be eternal. plato, that this very world prepares for itself a nutriment, by the alteration of those things which are corruptible in it. philolaus affirms that a destruction happens to the world in two ways; either by fire failing from heaven, or by the sublunary water being poured down through the whirling of the air; and the exhalations proceeding from thence are aliment of the world. chapter vi. from what element god did begin to raise the fabric of the world. the natural philosophers pronounce that the forming of this world took its original from the earth, it being its centre, for the centre is the principal part of the globe. pythagoras, from the fire and the fifth element. empedocles determines, that the first and principal element distinct from the rest was the aether, then fire, after that the earth, which earth being strongly compacted by the force of a potent revolution, water springs from it, the exhalations of which water produce the air; the heaven took its origin from the aether, and fire gave a being to the sun; those things nearest to the earth are condensed from the remainders. plato, that the visible world was framed after the exemplar of the intellectual world; the soul of the visible world was first produced, then the corporeal figure, first that which proceeded from fire and earth, then that which came from air and water. pythagoras, that the world was formed of five solid figures which are called mathematical; the earth was produced by the cube, the fire by the pyramid, the air by the octahedron, the water by the icosahedron, and the globe of the universe by the dodecahedron. in all these plato hath the same sentiments with pythagoras. chapter vii. in what form and order the world was composed. parmenides maintains that there are small coronets alternately twisted one within another, some made up of a thin, others of a condensed, matter; and there are others between mixed mutually together of light and of darkness, and around them all there is a solid substance, which like a firm wall surrounds these coronets. leucippus and democritus cover the world round about, as with a garment and membrane. epicurus says that that which abounds some worlds is thin, and that which limits others is gross and condensed; and of these spheres some are in motion, others are fixed. plato, that fire takes the first place in the world, the second the aether, after that the air, under that the water; the last place the earth possesseth: sometimes he puts the aether and the fire in the same place. aristotle gives the first place to the aether, as that which is impassible, it being a kind of a fifth body after which he placeth those that are passible, fire, air, and water, and last of all the earth. to those bodies that are accounted celestial he assigns a motion that is circular, but to those that are seated under them, if they be light bodies, an ascending, if heavy, a descending motion. empedocles, that the places of the elements are not always fixed and determined, but they all succeed one another in their respective stations. chapter viii. what is the cause of the world's inclination. diogenes and anaxagoras state that, after the world was composed and had produced living creatures, the world out of its own propensity made an inclination toward the south. perhaps this may be attributed to a wise providence (they affirm), that thereby some parts of the world may be habitable, others uninhabitable, according as the various climates are affected with a rigorous cold, or a scorching heat, or a just temperament of cold and heat. empedocles, that the air yielding to the impetuous force of the solar rays, the poles received an inclination; whereby the northern parts were exalted and the southern depressed, by which means the whole world received its inclination. chapter ix. of that thing which is beyond the world, and whether it be a vacuum or not. pythagoras and his followers say that beyond the world there is a vacuum, into which and out of which the world hath its respiration. the stoics, that there is a vacuum into which infinite space by a conflagration shall be dissolved. posidonius, not an infinite vacuum, but as much as suffices for the dissolution of the world; and this he asserts in his first book concerning the vacuum. aristotle affirms, that a vacuum does not exist. plato concludes that neither within nor without the world there is any vacuum. chapter x. what parts of the world are on the right hand, and what on the left. pythagoras, plato, and aristotle declare that the eastern parts of the world, from whence motion commences, are of the right, those of the western are of the left hand of the world. empedocles, that those that are of the right hand face the summer solstice, those of the left the winter solstice. chapter xi. of heaven, what is its nature and essence. anaximenes affirms that the circumference of heaven makes the limit of the earth's revolution. empedocles, that the heaven is a solid substance, and hath the form and hardness of crystal, it being composed of the air compacted by fire, and that in both hemispheres it invests the elements of air and fire. aristotle, that it is formed by the fifth body, and by the mixture of extreme heat and cold. chapter xii. into how many circles is the heaven distinguished; or, of the division of heaven. thales, pythagoras, and the followers of pythagoras do distribute the universal globe of heaven into five circles, which they denominate zones; one of which is called the arctic circle, which is always conspicuous to us, another is the summer tropic, another is the solstice, another is the winter tropic, another is the antarctic circle, which is always out of sight. the circle called the zodiac is placed under the three that are in the midst, and is oblique, gently touching them all. likewise, they are all divided in right angles by the meridian, which goes from pole to pole. it is supposed that pythagoras made the first discovery of the obliquity of the zodiac, but one oenopides of chios challenges to himself the invention of it. chapter xiii. what is the essence of the stars, and how they are composed. thales affirms that they are globes of earth set on fire. empedocles, that they are fiery bodies arising from that fire which the aether embraced within itself, and did shatter in pieces when the elements were first separated one from another. anaxagoras, that the circumambient aether is of a fiery substance, which, by a vehement force in its whirling about, did tear stones from the earth, and by its own power set them on fire, and establish them as stars in the heavens. diogenes thinks they resemble pumice stones, and that they are the breathings of the world; again he supposeth that there are some invisible stones, which fall sometimes from heaven upon the earth, and are there quenched; as it happened at aegos-potami, where a stony star resembling fire did fall. empedocles, that the fixed stars fastened to the crystal, but the planets are loosened. plato, that the stars for the most part are of a fiery nature, but they are made partakers of another element, with they are mixed after the resemblance of glue. zenophanes, that they are composed of inflamed clouds, which in the daytime are quenched, and in the night are kindled again. the like we see in coals; for the rising and setting of the stars is nothing else but the quenching and kindling of them. heraclitus and the pythagoreans, that every star is a world in an infinite aether, and encompasseth air, earth, and aether; this opinion is current among the disciples of orpheus, for they suppose that each of the stars does make a world. epicurus condemns none of these opinions, for he embraces anything that is possible. chapter xiv. of what figure the stars are. the stoics say that the stars are of a circular form, like as the sun, the moon, and the world. cleanthes, that they are of a conical figure. anaximenes, that they are fastened as nails in the crystalline firmament; some others, that they are fiery plates of gold, resembling pictures. chapter xv. of the order and place of the stars. xenocrates says that the stars are moved in one and the same superficies. the other stoics say that they are moved in various superficies, some being superior, others inferior. democritus, that the fixed stars are in the highest place; after those the planets; after these the sun, venus, and the moon, in order. plato, that the first after the fixed stars that makes its appearance is phaenon, the star of saturn; the second phaeton, the star of jupiter; the third the fiery, which is the star of mars; the fourth the morning star, which is the star of venus; the fifth the shining star, and that is the star of mercury; in the sixth place is the sun, in the seventh the moon. plato and some of the mathematicians conspire in the same opinion; others place the sun as the centre of the planets. anaximander, metrodorus of chios, and crates assign to the sun the superior place, after him the moon, after them the fixed stars and planets. chapter xvi. of the motion and circulation of the stars. anaxagoras, democritus, and cleanthes say that all the stars have their motion from east to west. alcmaeon and the mathematicians, that the planets have a contrary motion to the fixed stars, and in opposition to them are carried from the west to the east. anaximander, that they are carried by those circles and spheres on which they are placed. anaximenes, that they are turned under and about the earth. plato and the mathematicians, that the sun, venus, and mercury hold equal measures in their motions. chapter xvii. whence do the stars receive their light? metrodorus says that all the fixed stars derive their light from the sun. heraclitus and the stoics, that earthly exhalations are those by which the stars are nourished. aristotle, that the heavenly bodies require no nutriment, for they being eternal cannot be obnoxious to corruption. plato and the stoics, that the whole world and the stars are fed by the same things. chapter xviii. what are those stars which are called the dioscuri, the twins, or castor and pollux? xenophanes says that those which appear as stars in the tops of ships are little clouds brilliant by their peculiar motion. metrodorus, that the eyes of frighted and astonished people emit those lights which are called the twins. chapter xix. how stars prognosticate, and what is the cause of winter and summer. plato says that the summer and winter indications proceed from the rising and setting of the stars, that is, from the rising and setting of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars. anaximenes, that the rest in this are not at all concerned, but that it is wholly performed by the sun. eudoxus and aratus assign it in common to all the stars, for thus aratus says:- thund'ring jove stars in heaven hath fixed, and them in such beauteous order mixed, which yearly future things predict. chapter xx. of the essence of the sun. anaximander says, that the sun is a circle eight and twenty times bigger than the earth, and has a circumference very much like that of a chariot-wheel, which is hollow and full of fire; the fire of which appears to us through its mouth, as by an aperture in a pipe; and this is the sun. xenophanes, that the sun is constituted of small bodies of fire compacted together and raised from a moist exhalation, which condensed make the body of the sun; or that it is a cloud enfired. the stoics, that it is an intelligent flame proceeding from the sea. plato, that it is composed of abundance of fire. anaxagoras, democritus, and metrodorus, that it is an enfired stone, or a burning body. aristotle, that it is a sphere formed out of the fifth body. philolaus the pythagorean, that the sun shines as crystal, which receives its splendor from the fire of the world and so reflecteth its light upon us; so that first, the body of fire which is celestial is in the sun; and secondly, the fiery reflection that comes from it, in the form of a mirror; and lastly, the rays spread upon us by way of reflection from that mirror; and this last we call the sun, which is (as it were) an image of an image. empedocles, that there are two suns; the one the prototype, which is a fire placed in the other hemisphere, which it totally fills, and is always ordered in a direct opposition to the reflection of its own light; and the sun which is visible to us, formed by the reflection of that splendor in the other hemisphere (which is filled with air mixed with heat), the light reflected from the circular sun in the opposite hemisphere falling upon the crystalline sun; and this reflection is borne round with the motion of the fiery sun. to give briefly the full sense, the sun is nothing else but the light and brightness of that fire which encompasseth the earth. epicurus, that it is an earthy bulk well compacted, with ores like a pumice-stone or a sponge, kindled by fire. chapter xxi. of the magnitude of the sun. anaximander says, that the sun itself in greatness is equal to the earth, but that the circle from whence it receives its respiration and in which it is moved is seven and twenty times larger than the earth. anaxagoras, that it is far greater than peloponnesus. heraclitus, that it is no broader than a man's foot. epicurus, that he equally embraceth all the foresaid opinions,--that the sun may be of magnitude as it appears, or it may be somewhat greater or somewhat less. chapter xxii. what is the figure or shape of the sun. anaximenes affirms that in its dilatation it resembles a leaf. heraclitus, that it hath the shape of a boat, and is somewhat crooked. the stoics, that it is spherical, and it is of the same figure with the world and the stars. epicurus, that the recited dogmas may be defended. chapter xxiii. of the turning and returning of the stars, or the summer and winter solstice. anaximenes believes that the stars are forced by a condensed and resisting air. anaxagoras, by the repelling force of the northern air, which is violently pushed on by the sun, and thus rendered more condensed and powerful. empedocles, that the sun is hindered from a continual direct course by its spherical vehicle and by the two circular tropics. diogenes, that the sun, when it comes to its utmost declination, is extinguished, a rigorous cold damping the heat. the stoics, that the sun maintains its course only through that space in which its sustenance is seated, let it be the ocean or the earth; by the exhalations proceeding from these it is nourished. plato, pythagoras, and aristotle, that the sun receives a transverse motion from the obliquity of the zodiac, which is guarded by the tropics; all these the globe clearly manifests. chapter xxiv. of the eclipse of the sun. thales was the first who affirmed that the eclipse of the sun was caused by the moon's running in a perpendicular line between it and the world; for the moon in its own nature is terrestrial. and by mirrors it is made perspicuous that, when the sun is eclipsed, the moon is in a direct line below it. anaximander, that the sun is eclipsed when the fiery mouth of it is stopped and hindered from respiration. heraclitus, that it is after the manner of the turning of a boat, when the concave seems uppermost to our sight, and the convex nethermost. xenophanes, that the sun is eclipsed when it is extinguished; and that a new sun is created and rises in the east. he gives a farther account of an eclipse of the sun which remained for a whole month, and again of an eclipse which changed the day into night. some declare that the cause of an eclipse is the invisible concourse of condensed clouds which cover the orb of the sun. aristarchus placeth the sun amongst the fixed stars, and believeth that the earth [the moon?] is moved about the sun, and that by its inclination and vergency it intercepts its light and shadows its orb. xenophanes, that there are many suns and many moons, according as the earth is distinguished by climates, circles, and zones. at some certain times the orb of the sun, falling upon some part of the world which is untenanted, wanders in a vacuum and becomes eclipsed. the same person affirms that the sun proceeding in its motion in the infinite space, appears to us to move orbicularly, taking that representation from its infinite distance from us. chapter xxv. of the essence of the moon. anaximander affirms that the circle of the moon is nineteen times bigger than the earth, and resembles the sun, its orb being full of fire; and it suffers an eclipse when the wheel makes a revolution,--which he describes by the divers turnings of a chariot-wheel, in the midst of it there being a hollow nave replenished with fire, which hath but one way of expiration. xenophanes, that it is a condensed cloud. the stoics, that it is mixed of fire and air. plato, that it is a body of the greatest part fiery. anaxagoras and democritus, that it is a solid, condensed, and fiery body, in which there are flat countries, mountains, and valleys. heraclitus, that it is an earth covered with a bright cloud. pythagoras, that the body of the moon was of a nature resembling a mirror. chapter xxvi. of the size of the moon. the stoics declare, that in magnitude it exceeds the earth, just as the sun itself doth. parmenides, that it is equal to the sun, from whom it receives its light. chapter xxvii. of the figure of the moon. the stoics believe that it is of the same figure with the sun, spherical. empedocles, that the figure of it resembles a quoit. heraclitus, a boat. others, a cylinder. chapter xxviii. from whence is it that the moon receives her light? anaximander thinks that she gives light to herself, but it is very slender and faint. antiphon, that the moon shines by its own proper light; but when it absconds itself, the solar beams darting on it obscure it. thus it naturally happens, that a more vehement light puts out a weaker; the same is seen in other stars. thales and his followers, that the moon borrows all her light of the sun. heraclitus, that the sun and moon are after the same manner affected; in their configurations both are shaped like boats, and are made conspicuous to us by receiving their light from moist exhalations. the sun appears to us more refulgent, by reason it is moved in a clearer and purer air; the moon appears more duskish, it being carried in an air more troubled and gross. chapter xxix. of the eclipse of the moon. anaximenes believes that the mouth of the wheel, about which the moon is turned, being stopped is the cause of an eclipse. berasus, that it proceeds from the turning of the dark side of the lunar orb towards us. heraclitus, that it is performed just after the manner of a boat turned upside downwards. some of the pythagoreans say, that the splendor arises from the earth, its obstruction from the antichthon (or counter-earth). some of the later philosophers, that there is such a distribution of the lunar flame, that it gradually and in a just order burns until it be full moon; in like manner, that this fire decays by degrees, until its conjunction with the sun totally extinguisheth it. plato, aristotle, the stoics, and all the mathematicians agree, that the obscurity with which the moon is every month affected ariseth from a conjunction with the sun, by whose more resplendent beams she is darkened; and the moon is then eclipsed when she falls upon the shadow of the earth, the earth interposing between the sun and moon, or (to speak more properly) the earth intercepting the light of the moon. chapter xxx. of the phases of the moon, or the lunar aspects; or how it comes to pass that the moon appears to us terrestrial. the pythagoreans say, that the moon appears to us terraneous, by reason it is inhabited as our earth is, and in it there are animals of a larger size and plants of a rarer beauty than our globe affords; that the animals in their virtue and energy are fifteen degrees superior to ours; that they emit nothing excrementitious; and that the days are fifteen times longer. anaxagoras, that the reason of the inequality ariseth from the commixture of things earthy and cold; and that fiery and caliginous matter is jumbled together, whereby the moon is said to be a star of a counterfeit aspect. the stoics, that on account of the diversity of her substance the composition of her body is subject to corruption. chapter xxxi. how far the moon is removed from the sun. empedocles declares, that the distance of the moon from the sun is double her remoteness from the earth. the mathematicians, that her distance from the sun is eighteen times her distance from the earth. eratosthenes, that the sun is remote from the earth seven hundred and eighteen thousand furlongs. chapter xxxii. of the year, and how many circulations make up the great year of every planet. the year of saturn is completed when he has had his circulation in the space of thirty solar years; of jupiter in twelve; of mars in two, of the sun in twelve months; in so many mercury and venus, the spaces of their circulation being equal; of the moon in thirty days, in which time her course from her prime to her conjunction is finished. as to the great year, some make it to consist of eight years solar, some of nineteen, others of fifty-nine. heraclitus, of eighteen thousand. diogenes, of three hundred and sixty-five such years as heraclitus assigns. others there are who lengthen it to seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven years. book iii. in my two precedent treatises having in due order taken a compendious view and given an account of the celestial bodies, and of the moon which stands between them and the terrestrial, i must now convert my pen to discourse in this third book of meteors, which are beings above the earth and below the moon, and are extended to the site and situation of the earth, which is supposed to be the centre of the sphere of this world; and from thence will i take my beginning. chapter i. of the galaxy, or the milky way. it is a cloudy circle, which continually appears in the air, and by reason of the whiteness of its colors is called the galaxy, or the milky way. some of the pythagoreans say that, when phaeton set the world on fire, a star falling from its own place in its circular passage through the region caused an inflammation. others say that originally it was the first course of the sun; others, that it is an image as in a looking-glass, occasioned by the sun's reflecting its beams towards the heavens, and this appears in the clouds and in the rainbow. metrodorus, that it is merely the solar course, or the motion of the sun in its own circle. parmenides, that the mixture of a thick and thin substance gives it a color which resembles milk. anaxagoras, that the sun moving under the earth and not being able to enlighten every place, the shadow of the earth, being cast upon the part of the heavens, makes the galaxy. democritus, that it is the splendor which ariseth from the coalition of many small bodies, which, being firmly united amongst themselves, do mutually enlighten one another. aristotle, that it is the inflammation of dry, copious, and coherent vapor, by which the fiery mane, whose seat is beneath the aether and the planets, is produced. posidonius, that it is a combination of fire, of finer substance than the stars, but denser than light. chapter ii. of comets and shooting fires, and those which resemble beams. some of the pythagoreans say, that a comet is one of those stars which do not always appear, but after they have run through their determined course, they then rise and are visible to us. others, that it is the reflection of our sight upon the sun, which gives the resemblance of comets much after the same manner as images are reflected in mirrors. anaxagoras and democritus, that two or more stars being in conjunction by their united light make a comet. aristotle, that it is a fiery coalition of dry exhalations. strato, that it is the light of the star darting through a thick cloud that hath invested it; this is seen in light shining through lanterns. heraclides, native of pontus, that it is a lofty cloud inflamed by a sublime fire. the like causes he assigns to the bearded comet, to those circles that are seen about the sun or stars, or those meteors which resemble pillars or beams, and all others which are of this kind. this way unanimously go all the peripatetics, holding that these meteors, being formed by the clouds, do differ according to their various configurations. epigenes, that a comet arises from a rising of spirit or wind, mixed with an earthy substance and set on fire. boethus, that it is a phantasy presented to us by fiery air. diogenes, that comets are stars. anaxagoras, that those styled shooting stars descend from the aether like sparks, and therefore are soon extinguished. metrodorus, that it is a forcible illapse of the sun upon clouds which makes them to sparkle as fire. xenophanes, that all such fiery meteors are nothing else but the conglomeration of the enfired clouds, and the flashing motions of them. chapter iii. of violent eruption of fire out of the clouds. of lightning. of thunder. of hurricanes. of whirlwinds. anaximander affirms that all these are produced by the wind after this manner: the wind being enclosed by condensed clouds, on account of its minuteness and lightness violently endeavors to make a passage; and in breaking through the cloud gives noise; and the tearing the cloud, because of the blackness of it, gives a resplendent flame. metrodorus, that when the wind falls upon a cloud whose densing firmly compacts it, by breaking the cloud it causeth a great noise, and by striking and rending the cloud it gives the flame; and in the swiftness of its motion, the sun imparting heat to it, it throws out the bolt. the weak declining of the thunderbolt ends in a violent tempest. anaxagoras, that when heat and cold meet and are mixed together (that is, ethereal parts with airy), thereby a great noise of thunder is produced, and the color observed against the blackness of the cloud occasions the flashing of fire; the full and great splendor is lightning, the more enlarged and embodied fire becomes a whirlwind, the cloudiness of it gives the hurricane. the stoics, that thunder is the clashing of clouds one upon another, the flash of lightning is their fiery inflammation; their more rapid splendor is the thunderbolt, the faint and weak the whirlwind. aristotle, that all these proceed from dry exhalations, which, if they meet with moist vapors, forcing their passage, the breaking of them gives the noise of thunder; they, being very dry, take fire and make lightning; tempests and hurricanes arise from the plenitude of matter which each draw to themselves, the hotter parts attracted make the whirlwinds, the duller the tempests. chapter iv. of clouds, rain, snow, and hail. anaximenes thinks that the air by being very much condensed clouds are formed; this air being more compacted, rain is compressed through it; when water in its falling down freezeth, then snow is generated; when it is encompassed with a moist air, it is hail. metrodorus, that a cloud is composed of a watery exhalation carried into a higher place. epicurus, that they are made of vapors; and that hail and snow are formed in a round figure, being in their long descent pressed upon by the circumambient air. chapter v. of the rainbow. those things which affect the air in the superior places of it are of two sorts. some have a real subsistence, such are rain and hail; others not. those which enjoy not a proper subsistence are only in appearance; of this sort is the rainbow. thus the continent to us that sail seems to be in motion. plato says, that men admiring it feigned that it took origination from one thaumas, which word signifies admiration. homer sings:- jove paints the rainbow with a purple dye, alluring man to cast his wandering eye. (iliad, xvii. 547.) others therefore fabled that the bow hath a head like a bull, by which it swallows up rivers. but what is the cause of the rainbow? it is evident that what apparent things we see come to our eyes in right or in crooked lines, or by refraction: these are incorporeal and to sense obscure, but to reason they are obvious. those which are seen in right lines are those which we see through the air or horn or transparent stones, for all the parts of these things are very fine and tenuous; but those which appear in crooked lines are in water, the thickness of the water presenting them bended to our sight. this is the reason that oars in themselves straight, when put into the sea, appear to us crooked. the third manner of our seeing is by refraction, and this is perspicuous in mirrors. after this third sort the rainbow is affected. we conceive it is a moist exhalation converted into a cloud, and in a short space it is dissolved into small and moist drops. the sun declining towards the west, it will necessarily follow that the whole bow is seen opposite to the sun; for the eye being directed to those drops receives a refraction, and by this means the bow is formed. the eye doth not consider the figure and form, but the color of these drops; the first of which colors is a shining red, the second a purple, the third is blue and green. let us consider whether the reason of this red shining color be the splendor of the sun falling upon these small drops, the whole body of light being refracted, by which this bright red color is produced; the second part being troubled and the light languishing in the drops, the color becomes purple (for the purple is the faint red); but the third part, being more and more troubled, is changed into the green color. and this is proved by other effects of nature; if any one shall put water in his mouth and spit it out so opposite to the sun, that its rays may be refracted on the drops, he shall see the resemblance of a rainbow; the same appears to men that are blear-eyed, when they fix their watery eyes upon a candle. anaximenes thinks the bow is thus formed; the sun casting its splendor upon a thick, black, and gross cloud, and the rays not being in a capacity to penetrate beyond the superficies. anaxagoras, that, the solar rays being reflected from a condensed cloud, the sun being placed directly opposite to it forms the bow after the mode of the repercussion of a mirror; after the same manner he assigns the natural cause of the parhelia or mock-suns, which are often seen in pontus. metrodorus, that when the sun casts its splendor through a cloud, the cloud gives itself a blue, and the light a red color. chapter vi. of meteors which resemble rods, or of rods. these rods and the mock-suns are constituted of a double nature, a real subsistence, and a mere appearance;--of a real subsistence, because the clouds are the object of our eyes; of a mere appearance, for their proper color is not seen, but that which is adventitious. the like affections, natural and adventitious, in all such things do happen. chapter vii. of winds. anaximander believes that wind is a fluid air, the sun putting into motion or melting the moist subtle parts of it. the stoics, that all winds are a flowing air, and from the diversity of the regions whence they have their origin receive their denomination; as, from darkness and the west the western wind; from the sun and its rising the eastern; from the north the northern, and from the south the southern winds. metrodorus, that moist vapors heated by the sun are the cause of the impetuousness of violent winds. the etesian, or those winds which annually commence about the rising of the little dog, the air about the northern pole being more compacted, blow violently following the sun when it returns from the summer solstice. chapter viii. of winter and summer. empedocles and the stoics believe that winter is caused by the thickness of the air prevailing and mounting upwards; and summer by fire, it falling downwards. this description being given by me of meteors, or those things that are above us, i must pass to those things which are terrestrial. chapter ix. of the earth, what is its nature and magnitude. thales and his followers say that there is but one earth. hicetes the pythagorean, that there are two earths, this and the antichthon, or the earth opposite to it. the stoics, that this earth is one, and that finite and limited. xenophanes, that the earth, being compacted of fire and air, in its lowest parts hath laid a foundation in an infinite depth. metrodorus, that the earth is mere sediment and dregs of water, as the sun is of the air. chapter x. of the figure of the earth. thales, the stoics, and their followers say that the earth is globular. anaximander, that it resembles a smooth stony pillar. anaximenes, that it hath the shape of a table. leucippus, of a drum. democritus, that it is like a quoit externally, and hollow in the middle. chapter xi. of the site and position of the earth. the disciples of thales say that the earth is the centre of the universe. xenophanes, that it is first, being rooted in the infinite space. philolaus the pythagorean gives to fire the middle place, and this is the source fire of the universe; the second place to the antichthon; the third to that earth which we inhabit, which is placed in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite,--which is the reason that those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us. parmenides was the first that confined the habitable world to the two solstitial (or temperate) zones. chapter xii. of the inclination of the earth. leucippus affirms that the earth vergeth towards the southern parts, by reason of the thinness and fineness that is in the south; the northern parts are more compacted, they being congealed by a rigorous cold, but those parts of the world that are opposite are enfired. democritus, because, the southern parts of the air being the weaker, the earth as it enlarges bends towards the south; the northern parts are of an unequal, the southern of an equal temperament; and this is the reason that the earth bends towards those parts where the earth is laden with fruits and its own increase. chapter xiii. of the motion of the earth. most of the philosophers say that the earth remains fixed in the same place. philolaus the pythagorean, that it is moved about the element of fire, in an oblique circle, after the same manner of motion that the sun and moon have. heraclides of pontus and ecphantus the pythagorean assign a motion to the earth, but not progressive, but after the manner of a wheel being carried on its own axis; thus the earth (they say) turns itself upon its own centre from west to east. democritus, that when the earth was first formed it had a motion, the parts of it being small and light; but in process of time the parts of it were condensed, so that by its own weight it was poised and fixed. chapter xiv. into how many zones is the earth divided? pythagoras says that, as the celestial sphere is distributed into five zones, into the same number is the terrestrial; which zones are the arctic and antarctic, the summer and winter tropics (or temperate zones), and the equinoctial; the middle of which zones equally divides the earth and constitutes the torrid zone; but that portion which is in between the summer and winter tropics is habitable, by reason the air is there temperate. chapter xv. of earthquakes. thales and democritus assign the cause of earthquakes to water. the stoics say that it is a moist vapor contained in the earth, making an irruption into the air, that causes the earthquake. anaximenes, that the dryness and rarity of the earth are the cause of earthquakes, the one of which is produced by extreme drought, the other by immoderate showers. anaxagoras, that the air endeavoring to make a passage out of the earth, meeting with a thick superficies, is not able to force its way, and so shakes the circumambient earth with a trembling. aristotle, that a cold vapor encompassing every part of the earth prohibits the evacuation of vapors; for those which are hot, being in themselves light, endeavor to force a passage upwards, by which means the dry exhalations, being left in the earth, use their utmost endeavor to make a passage out, and being wedged in, they suffer various circumvolutions and shake the earth. metrodorus, that whatsoever is in its own place is incapable of motion, except it be pressed upon or drawn by the operation of another body; the earth being so seated cannot naturally be moved, yet divers parts and places of the earth may move one upon another. parmenides and democritus, that the earth being so equally poised hath no sufficient ground why it should incline more to one side than to the other; so that it may be shaken, but cannot be removed. anaximenes, that the earth by reason of its latitude is borne upon by the air which presseth upon it. others opine that the earth swims upon the waters, as boards and broad planks, and by that reason is moved. plato, that motion is by six manner of ways, upwards, downwards, on the right hand and on the left, behind and before; therefore it is not possible that the earth should be moved in any of these modes, for it is altogether seated in the lowest place; it therefore cannot receive a motion, since there is nothing about it so peculiar as to cause it to incline any way; but some parts of it are so rare and thin that they are capable of motion. epicurus, that the possibility of the earth's motion ariseth from a thick and aqueous air under the earth, that may, by moving or pushing it, be capable of quaking; or that being so compassed, and having many passages, it is shaken by the wind which is dispersed through the hollow dens of it. chapter xvi. of the sea, and how it is composed, and how it becomes to the taste bitter. anaximander affirms that the sea is the remainder of the primogenial humidity, the greatest part of which being dried up by the fire, the influence of the great heat altered its quality. anaxagoras that in the beginning water did not flow, but was as a standing pool; and that it was burnt by the movement of the sun about it, by which the oily part of the water being exhaled, the residue became salt. empedocles, that the sea is the sweat of the earth heated by the sun. antiphon, that the sweat of that which was hot was separated from the rest which were moist; these by seething and boiling became bitter, as happens in all sweats. metrodorus, that the sea was strained through the earth, and retained some part of its density; the same is observed in all those things which are strained through ashes. the schools of plato, that the element of water being compacted by the rigor of the air became sweet, but that part which was expired from the earth, being enfired, became of a brackish taste. chapter xvii. of tides, or of the ebbing and flowing of the sea. aristotle and heraclides say, they proceed from the sun, which moves and whirls about the winds; and these falling with a violence upon the atlantic, it is pressed and swells by them, by which means the sea flows; and their impression ceasing, the sea retracts, hence they ebb. pytheas the massilian, that the fulness of the moon gives the flow, the wane the ebb. plato attributes it all to a certain balance of the sea, which by means of a mouth or orifice causes the tide; and by this means the seas do rise and flow alternately. timaeus believes that those rivers which fall from the mountains of the celtic gaul into the atlantic produce a tide. for upon their entering upon that sea, they violently press upon it, and so cause the flow; but they disemboguing themselves, there is a cessation of the impetuousness, by which means the ebb is produced. seleucus the mathematician attributes a motion to the earth; and thus he pronounceth that the moon in its circumlation meets and repels the earth in its motion; between these two, the earth and the moon, there is a vehement wind raised and intercepted, which rushes upon the atlantic ocean, and gives us a probable argument that it is the cause the sea is troubled and moved. chapter xviii. of the aurea, or a circle about a star. the aurea or circle is thus formed. a thick and dark air intervening between the moon or any other star and our eye, by which means our sight is dilated and reflected, when now our sight falls upon the outward circumference of the orb of that star, there presently seems a circle to appear. this circle thus appearing is called the [greek omitted] or halo; and there is constantly such a circle seen by us, when such a density of sight happens. book iv. having taken a survey of the general parts of the world, i will take a view of the particular members of it. chapter i. of the overflowing of the nile. thales conjectures that the etesian or anniversary northern winds blowing strongly against egypt heighten the swelling of the nile, the mouth of that river being obstructed by the force of the sea rushing into it. euthymenes the massilian concludes that the nile is filled by the ocean and that sea which is outward from it, the last being naturally sweet. anaxagoras, that the snow in ethiopia which is frozen in winter is melted in summer, and this makes the inundation. democritus, that the snows which are in the northern climates when the sun enters the summer solstice are dissolved and diffused; from those vapors clouds are compacted, and these are forcibly driven by the etesian winds into the southern parts and into egypt, from whence violent showers are poured; and by this means the fens of egypt are filled with water, and the river nile hath its inundation. herodotus the historian, that the waters of the nile receive from their fountain an equal portion of water in winter and in summer; but in winter the water appears less, because the sun, making its approach nearer to egypt, draws up the rivers of that country into exhalation. ephorus the historiographer, that in summer all egypt seems to be melted and sweats itself into water, to which the thin and sandy soils of arabia and lybia contribute. eudoxus relates that the egyptian priests affirm that, when it is summer to us who dwell under the northern tropic, it is winter with them that inhabit under the southern tropic; by this means there is a various contrariety and opposition of the seasons in the year, which cause such showers to fall as make the water to overflow the banks of the nile and diffuse itself throughout all egypt. chapter ii. of the soul. thales first pronounced that the soul is that being which is in a perpetual motion, or that whose motion proceeds from itself. pythagoras, that it is a number moving itself; he takes a number to be the same thing with a mind. plato, that it is an intellectual substance moving itself, and that motion is in a numerical harmony. aristotle, that it is the first actuality [greek ommitted] of a natural organical body which has life potentially; and this actuality must be understood to be the same thing with energy or operation. dicaearchus, that it is the harmony of the four elements. asclepiades the physician, that it is the concurrent exercitation of the senses. chapter iii. whether the soul be a body, and what is the nature and essence of it. all those named by me do affirm that the soul itself is incorporeal, and by its own nature is in a motion, and in its own self is an intelligent substance, and the living actuality of a natural organical body. the followers of anaxagoras, that it is airy and a body. the stoics, that it is a hot exhalation. democritus, that it is a fiery composition of things which are perceptible by reason alone, the same having their forms spherical and without an inflaming faculty; and it is a body. epicurus, that it is constituted of four qualities, of a fiery quality, of an aerial quality, a pneumatical, and of a fourth quality which hath no name, but it contains the virtue of the sense. heraclitus, that the soul of the world is the exhalation which proceeds from the moist parts of it; but the soul of animals, arising from exhalations that are exterior and from those that are within them, is homogeneous to it. chapter iv. of the parts of the soul. plato and pythagoras, according to their first account, distribute the soul into two parts, the rational and irrational. by a more accurate and strict account the soul is branched into three parts; they divide the unreasonable part into the concupiscible and the irascible. the stoics say the soul is constituted of eight parts; five of which are the senses, hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, the sixth is the faculty of speaking, the seventh of generating, the eighth of commanding; this is the principal of all, by which all the other are guided and ordered in their proper organs, as we see the eight arms of a polypus aptly disposed. democritus and epicurus divide the soul into two parts, the one rational, which bath its residence in the breast, and the irrational, which is diffused through the whole structure of the body. democritus, that the quality of the soul is communicated to everything, yea, to the dead corpses; for they are partakers of heat and some sense, when the most of both is expired out of them. chapter v. what is the principal part of the soul, and in what part of the body it resides. plato and democritus place its residence in the whole head. strato, in that part of the forehead where the eyebrows are separated. erasiatratus, in the epikranis, or membrane which involves the brain. herophilus, in that sinus of the brain which is the basis of it. parmenides, in the breast; which opinion is embraced by epicurus. the stoics are generally of this opinion, that the seat of the soul is throughout the heart, or in the spirit about it. diogenes, in the arterial ventricle of the heart, which is also full of vital spirit. empedocles, in the mass of the blood. there are that say it is in the neck of the heart, others in the pericardium, others in the midriff. certain of the neoterics, that the seat of the soul is extended from the head to the diaphragm. pythagoras, that the animal part of the soul resides in the heart, the intellectual in the head. chapter vi. of the motion of the soul. plato believes that the soul is in perpetual motion, but that it is immovable as regards motion from place to place. aristotle, that the soul is not naturally moved, but its motion is accidental, resembling that which is in the forms of bodies. chapter vii. of the soul's immortality. plato and pythagoras say that the soul is immortal; when it departs out of the body, it retreats to the soul of the world, which is a being of the same nature with it. the stoics, when the souls leave the bodies, they are carried to divers places; the souls of the unlearned and ignorant descend to the coagmentation of earthly things, but the learned and vigorous last till the general fire. epicurus and democritus, the soul is mortal, and it perisheth with the body. plato and pythagoras, that part of the soul of man which is rational is eternal; for though it be not god, yet it is the product of an eternal deity; but that part of the soul which is divested of reason dies. chapter viii. of the senses, and of those things which are objects of the senses, the stoics give this definition of sense: sense is the apprehension or comprehension of an object by means of an organ of sensation. there are several ways of expressing what sense is; it is either a habit, a faculty, an operation, or an imagination which apprehends by means of an organ of sense,--and also the eighth principal thing, from whence the senses originate. the instruments of sense are intelligent exhalations, which from the said commanding part extend unto all the organs of the body. epicurus, that sense is a faculty, and that which is perceived by the sense is the product of it; so that sense hath a double acceptation,--sense which is the faculty, and the thing received by the sense, which is the effect. plato, that sense is that commerce which the soul and body have with those things that are exterior to them; the power of which is from the soul, the organ by which is from the body; but both of them apprehend external objects by means of the imagination. leucippus and democritus, that sense and intelligence arise from external images; so neither of them can operate without the assistance of image falling upon us. chapter ix. whether what appears to our senses and imaginations be true or not. the stoics say that what the senses represent is true; what the imagination, is partly false, partly true. epicurus that every impression of the sense or imagination is true, but of those things that fall under the head of opinion, some are true, some false: sense gives us a false presentation of those things only which are the objects of our understanding; but the imagination gives us a double error, both of things sensible and things intellectual. empedocles and heraclides, that the senses act by a just accommodation of the pores in every case; everything that is perceived by the sense being congruously adapted to its proper organ. chapter x. how many senses are there? the stoics say that there are five senses properly so called, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. aristotle indeed doth not add a sixth sense; but he assigns a common sense, which is the judge of all compounded species; into this each sense casts its proper representation, in which is discovered a transition of one thing into another, like as we see in figure and motion where there is a change of one into another. democritus, that there are divers species of senses, which appertain to beings destitute of reason, to the gods, and to wise men. chapter xi. how the actions of the senses, the conceptions of our minds, and the habit of our reason are formed. the stoics affirm that every man, as soon as he is born, has a principal and commanding part of his soul, which is in him like a sheet of writing-paper, to which he commits all his notions. the first manner of his inscribing is by denoting those notions which flow from the senses. suppose it be of a thing that is white; when the present sense of it is vanished, there is yet retained the remembrance; when many memorative notions of the same similitude do concur, then he is said to have an experience; for experience is nothing more than the abundance of notions that are of the same form met together. some of these notions are naturally begotten according to the aforesaid manner, without the assistance of art; the others are produced by discipline, learning, and industry; these only are justly called notions, the others are prenotions. but reason, which gives us the denomination of rational, is completed by prenotions in the first seven years. the conception of the mind is the vision that the intelligence of a rational animal hath received; when that vision falls upon the rational soul, then it is called the conception of the mind, for it hath derived its name from the mind [greek omitted] from [greek omitted]. therefore these visions are not to be found in any other animals; they only are appropriated to gods and to us men. if these we consider generally, they are phantasms; if specifically, they are notions. as pence or staters, if you consider them according to their own value, are simply pence and staters; but if you give them as a price for a naval voyage, they are called not merely pence, etc., but your freight. chapter xii. what is the difference between imagination [greek omitted], the imaginable [greek omitted], fancy [greek omitted], and phantom [greek omitted]? chrysippus affirms, these four are different one from another. imagination is that passion raised in the soul which discovers itself and that which was the efficient of it; to use example, after the eye hath looked upon a thing that is white, the sight of which produceth in the mind a certain impression, this gives us reason to conclude that the object of this impression is white, which affecteth us. so with touching and smelling phantasy or imagination is denominated from [greek omitted] which denotes light; for as light discovers itself and all other things which it illuminates, so this imagination discovers itself and that which is the cause of it. the imaginable is the efficient cause of imagination; as anything that is white, or anything that is cold, or everything that may make an impression upon the imagination. fancy is a vain impulse upon the mind of man, proceeding from nothing which is really conceivable; this is experienced in those that whirl about their idle hand and fight with shadows; for to the imagination there is always some real imaginable thing presented, which is the efficient cause of it; but to the fancy nothing. a phantom is that to which we are brought by such a fanciful and vain attraction; this is to be seen in melancholy and distracted persons. of this sort was orestes in the tragedy, pronouncing these words: mother, these maids with horror me affright; oh bring them not, i pray, into my sight! they're smeared with blood, and cruel, dragon-like, skipping about with deadly fury strike. these rave as frantic persons, they see nothing, and yet imagine they see. thence electra thus returns to him: o wretched man, securely sleep in bed; nothing thou seest, thy fancy's vainly led. (euripides, "orestes", 255.) after the same manner theoclymenus in homer. chapter xiii. of our sight, and by what means we see. democritus and epicurus suppose that sight is caused by the insertion of little images into the visive organ, and by the reception of certain rays which return to the eye after meeting the object. empedocles supposes that images are mixed with the rays of the eye; these he styles the rays of images. hipparchus, that the visual rays extend from both the eyes to the superficies of bodies, and give to the sight the apprehension of those same bodies, after the same manner in which the hand touching the extremity of bodies gives the sense of feeling. plato, that the sight is the splendor of united rays; there is a light which reaches some distance from the eyes into a cognate air, and there is likewise a light shed from bodies, which meets and joins with the fiery visual light in the intermediate air (which is liquid and mutable); and the union of these rays gives the sense of seeing. this is plato's corradiancy, or splendor of united rays. chapter xiv. of those images which are presented to our eyes in mirrors. empedocles says that these images are caused by certain effluxes which, meeting together and resting upon the superficies of the mirror, are perfected by that fiery element emitted by the said mirror, which transforms withal the air that surrounds it. democritus and epicurus, that the specular appearances are made by the subsistence of the images which flow from our eyes; these fall upon the mirror and remain, while the light returns to the eye. the followers of pythagoras explain it by the reflection of the sight; for our sight being extended (as it were) to the brass, and meeting with the smooth dense surface thereof it is forced back, and caused to return upon itself: the same takes place in the hand, when it is stretched out and then brought back again to the shoulder. any one may use these instances to explain the manner of seeing. chapter xv. whether darkness can be visible to us. the stoics say that darkness is seen by us, for out of our eyes there issues out some light into it; and our eyes do not impose upon us, for they really perceive there is darkness. chrysippus says that we see darkness by the striking of the intermediate air; for the visual spirits which proceed from the principal part of the soul and reach to the ball of the eye pierce this air, which, after they have made those strokes upon it, extend conically on the surrounding air, where this is homogeneous in quality. for from the eyes those rays are poured forth which are neither black nor cloudy. upon this account darkness is visible to us. chapter xvi. of hearing. empedocles says that hearing is formed by the insidency of the air upon the cochlea, which it is said hangs within the ear as a bell, and is beat upon by the air. alcmaeon, that the vacuity that is within the ear makes us to have the sense of hearing, for the air forcing a vacuum gives the sound; every inanity affords a ringing. diogenes the air which exists in the head, being struck upon by the voice gives the hearing. plato and his followers, the air which exists in the head being struck upon, is reflected to the principal part of the soul, and this causeth the sense of hearing. chapter xvii. of smelling. alcmaeon believes that the principal part of the soul, residing in the brain, draws to itself odors by respiration. empedocles, that scents insert themselves into the breathing of the lungs; for, when there is a great difficulty in breathing, odors are not perceived by reason of the sharpness; and this we experience in those who have the defluxion of rheum. chapter xviii. of taste. alcmaeon says that a moist warmth in the tongue, joined with the softness of it, gives the difference of taste. diogenes, that by the softness and sponginess of the tongue, and because the veins of the body are joined in it, tastes are diffused by the tongue; for they are attracted from it to that sense and to the commanding part of the soul, as from a sponge. chapter xix. of the voice. plato thus defines a voice,--that it is a breath drawn by the mind through the mouth, and a blow impressed on the air and through the ear, brain, and blood transmitted to the soul. voice is abusively attributed to irrational and inanimate beings; thus we improperly call the neighing of horses or any other sound by the name of voice. but properly a voice [greek omitted] is an articulate sound, which illustrates [greek omitted] the understanding of man. epicurus says that it is an efflux emitted from things that are vocal, or that give sounds or great noises; this is broken into those fragments which are after the same configuration. like figures are round figures with round, and irregular and triangular with those of the same kind. these falling upon the ears produce the sense of hearing. this is seen in leaking vessels, and in fullers when they fan or blow their cloths. democritus, that the air is broken into bodies of similar configuration, and these are rolled up and down with the fragments of the voice; as it is proverbially said, one daw lights with another, or, god always brings like to like. thus we see upon the seashore, that stones like to one another are found in the same place, in one place the long-shaped, in another the round are seen. so in sieves, things of the same form meet together, but those that are different are divided; as pulse and beans falling from the same sieve are separated one from another. to this it may be objected: how can some fragments of air fill a theatre in which there is an infinite company of persons. the stoics, that the air is not composed of small fragments, but is a continued body and nowhere admits a vacuum; and being struck with the air, it is infinitely moved in waves and in right circles, until it fill that air which surrounds it; as we see in a fish-pool which we smite by a falling stone cast upon it; yet the air is moved spherically, the water orbicularly. anaxagoras says a voice is then formed when upon a solid air the breath is incident, which being repercussed is carried to the ears; after the same manner the echo is produced. chapter xx. whether the voice is incorporeal. what is it that the gives echo? pythagoras, plato, and aristotle declare that the voice is incorporeal; for it is not the air that causes the voice, but the figure which compasseth the air and its superficies having received a stroke, give the voice. but every superficies of itself is incorporeal. it is true that it move with the body but itself it hath no body; as we observe in a staff that is bended, the matter only admits of an inflection, while the superficies doth not. according to the stoics a voice is corporeal since everything that is an agent or operates is a body; a voice acts and operates, for we hear it and are sensible of it; for it falls and makes an impression on the ear, as a seal of a ring gives its similitude upon the wax. besides, everything that creates a delight or injury is a body; harmonious music affects with delight, but discord is tiresome. and everything that moved is a body; and the voice moves, and having its illapse upon smooth places is reflected, as when a ball is cast against a wall it rebounds. a voice spoken in the egyptian pyramids is so broken, that it gives four or five echoes. chapter xxi. by what means the soul is sensible, and what is the principal and commanding part of it. the stoics say that the highest part of the soul is the commanding part of it: this is the cause of sense, fancy, consents, and desires; and this we call the rational part. from this principal and commander there are produced seven parts of the soul, which are spread through the body, as the seven arms in a polypus. of these seven parts, five are assigned to the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. sight is a spirit which is extended from the commanding part of the eyes; hearing is that spirit which from the principle reacheth to the ears; smelling a spirit drawn from the principal to the nostrils; tasting a spirit extended from the principle to the tongue; touching is a spirit which from the principal is drawn to the extremity of those bodies which are obnoxious to a sensible touch. of the rest, the one called the spermatical is a spirit which reacheth from the principal to the generating vessels; the other, which is the vocal and termed the voice, is a spirit extended from the principal to the throat, tongue, and other proper organs of speaking. and this principal part itself hath that place in our spherical head which god hath in the world. chapter xxii. of respiration or breathing. empedocles thinks, that the first breath the first animal drew was when the moisture in the embryo was separated, and by that means an entrance was given to the external air into the gaping vessels, the moisture in them being evacuated. after this the natural heat, in a violent force pressing upon the external air for a passage, begets an expiration; but this heat returning to the inward parts, and the air giving way to it, causeth a respiration. the respiration that now is arises when the blood is borne to the exterior surface, and by this movement drives the airy substance through the nostrils; thus in its recess it causeth expiration, but the air being again forced into those places which are emptied of blood, it causeth an inspiration. to explain which, he proposeth the instance of a water-clock, which gives the account of time by the running of water. asclepiades supposeth the lungs to be in the manner of a funnel, and the cause of breathing to be the fineness of the inward parts of the breast; for thither the outward air which is more gross hastens, but is forced backward, the breast not being capable either to receive or want it. but there being always some of the more tenuous parts of the air left, so that all of it is not exploded, to that which there remains the more ponderous external air with equal violence is forced; and this he compares to cupping-glasses. all spontaneous breathings are formed by the contracting of the smaller pores of the lungs, and to the closing of the pipe in the neck; for these are at our command. herophilus attributes a moving faculty to the nerves, arteries, and muscles, but thinks that the lungs are affected only with a natural desire of enlarging and contracting themselves. farther, there is the first operation of the lungs by attraction of the outward air, which is drawn in because of the abundance of the external air. next to this, there is a second natural appetite of the lungs; the breast, pouring in upon itself the breath, and being filled, is no longer able to make an attraction, and throws the superfluity of it upon the lungs, whereby it is then sent forth in expiration; the parts of the body mutually concurring to this function by the alternate participation of fulness and emptiness. so that to lungs pertain four motions--first, when the lungs receive the outward air; secondly, when the outward air thus entertained is transmitted to the breast; thirdly, when the lungs again receive that air which they imparted to the breast; fourthly, when this air then received from the breast is thrown outwards. of these four processes two are dilatations, one when the lungs attract the air, another when the breast dischargeth itself of it upon the lungs; two are contractions, one when the breast draws into itself the air, the second when it expels this which was insinuated into it. the breast admits only of two motions--of dilatation, when it draws from the lungs the breath, and of contraction, when it returns what it did receive. chapter xxiii. of the passions of the body, and whether the soul hath a sympathetical condolency with it. the stoics say that all the passions are seated in those parts of the body which are affected, the senses have their residence in the commanding part of the soul. epicurus, that all the passions and all the senses are in those parts which are affected, but the commanding part is subject to no passion. strato, that all the passions and senses of the soul are in the rational or commanding part of it, and are not fixed in those places which are affected; for in this place patience takes its residence, and this is apparent in terrible and dolorous things, as also in timorous and valiant individuals. book v chapter i. of divination. plato and the stoics introduce divination as a godlike enthusiasm, the soul itself being of a divine constitution, and this prophetic faculty being inspiration, or an illapse of the divine knowledge into man; and so likewise they account for interpretation by dreams. and these same allow many divisions of the art of divination. xenophanes and epicurus utterly refuse any such art of foretelling future contingencies. pythagoras rejects all manner of divination which is by sacrifices. aristotle and dicaearchus admit only these two kinds of it, a fury by a divine inspiration, and dreams; they deny the immortality of the soul, yet they affirm that the mind of man hath a participation of something that is divine. chapter ii. whence dreams do arise. democritus says that dreams are formed by the illapse of adventitious representations. strato, that the irrational part of the soul in sleep becoming more sensible is moved by the rational part of it. herophilus, that dreams which are caused by divine instinct have a necessary cause; but dreams which have their origin from a natural cause arise from the soul's forming within itself the images of those things which are convenient for it, and which will happen; those dreams which are of a constitution mixed of both these have their origin from the fortuitous appulse of images, as when we see those things which please us; thus it happens many times to those persons who in their sleep imagine they embrace their mistresses. chapter iii. of the nature of generative seed. aristotle says, that seed is that thing which contains in itself a power of moving, whereby it is enabled to produce a being like unto that from whence it was emitted. pythagoras, that seed is the sediment of that which nourisheth us, the froth of the purest blood, of the same nature of the blood and marrow of our bodies. alcmaeon, that it is part of the brain. plato, that it is the deflux of the spinal marrow. epicurus, that it is a fragment torn from the body and soul. democritus, that it proceeds from all the parts of the body, and chiefly from the principal parts, as the tissues and muscles. chapter iv. whether the sperm be a body. leucippus and zeno say, that it is a body and a fragment of the soul. pythagoras, plato, and aristotle, that the spermatic faculty is incorporeal, as the mind is which moves the body; but the effused matter is corporeal. strato and democritus, that the essential power is a body; for it is like spirit. chapter v. whether women do give a spermatic emission as men do. pythagoras, epicurus, and democritus say, that women have a seminal projection, but their spermatic vessels are inverted; and it is this that makes them have a venereal appetite. aristotle and plato, that they emit a material moisture, as sweat we see produced by exercise and labor; but that moisture has no spermatic power. hippo, that women have a seminal emission, but not after the mode of men; it contributes nothing to generation, for it falls outside of the matrix; and therefore some women without coition, especially widows, give the seed. they also assert that from men the bones, from women the flesh proceed. chapter vi. how it is that conceptions are made. aristotle says, that conception takes place when the womb is drawn down by the natural purgation, and the monthly terms attract from the whole mass part of the purest blood, and this is met by the seed of man. on the contrary, there is a failure by the impurity and inflation of the womb, by fear and grief, by the weakness of women, or the decline of strength in men. chapter vii. after what manner males and females are generated. empedocles affirms, that heat and cold give the difference in the generation of males and females. hence is it, as histories acquaint us, that the first men originated from the earth in the eastern and southern parts, and the first females in the northern parts. parmenides is of opinion perfectly contrariant. he affirms that men first sprouted out of the northern earth, for their bodies are more dense; women out of the southern, for theirs are more rare and fine. hippo, that the more compacted and strong sperm, and the more fluid and weak, discriminate the sexes. anaxagoras and parmenides, that the seed of the man is naturally cast from his right side into the right side of the womb, or from the left side of the man into the left side of the womb; there is an alteration in this course of nature when females are generated. cleophanes, whom aristotle makes mention of, assigns the generation of men to the right testicle, of women to the left. leucippus gives the reason of it to the alteration or diversity of parts, according to which the man hath a yard, the female the matrix; as to any other reason he is silent. democritus, that the parts common to both sexes are engendered indifferently; but the peculiar parts by the one that is more powerful. hippo, that if the spermatic faculty be more effectual, the male, if the nutritive aliment, the female is generated. chapter viii. by what means it is that monstrous births are effected. empedocles believes that monsters receive their origination from the abundance or defect of seed, or from its division into parts which are superabundant, or from some disturbance in the motion, or else that there is an error by a lapse into an unsuitable receptacle; and thus he presumes he hath given all the causes of monstrous conceptions. strato, that it comes through addition, subtraction, or transposition of the seed, or the distension or inflation of the matrix. and some physicians say that the matrix suffers distortion, being distended with wind. chapter ix. how it comes to pass that a woman's too frequent conversation with a man hinders conception. diocles the physician says that either no genital sperm is projected, or, if there be, it is in a less quantity than nature requires, or there is no prolific faculty in it; or there is a deficiency of a due proportion of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness; or there is a resolution of the generative parts. the stoics attribute sterility to the obliquity of the yard, by which means it is not able to ejaculate in a due manner, or to the unproportionable magnitude of the parts, the matrix being so contracted as not to have a capacity to receive. erasistratus assigns it to the womb's being more callous or more carneous, thinner or smaller, than nature does require. chapter x. whence it is that one birth gives two or three children. empedocles affirms, that the superabundance of sperm and the division of it causes the bringing forth of two or three infants. asclepiades, that it is performed from the excellent quality of the sperm, after the manner that from the root of one barleycorn two or three stalks do grow; sperm that is of this quality is the most prolific. erasistratus, that superfetation may happen to women as to irrational creatures; for, if the womb be well purged and very clean, then there can be divers births. the stoics, that it ariseth from the various receptacles that are in the womb: when the seed illapses into the first and second of them at once, then there are conceptions upon conception; and so two or three infants are born. chapter xi. whence it is that children represent their parents and progenitors. empedocles says, that the similitude of children to their parents proceeds from the vigorous prevalency of the generating sperm; the dissimilitude from the evaporation of the natural heat it contains. parmenides, that when the sperm falls on the right side of the womb, then the infant gives the resemblance of the father; if from the left, it is stamped with the similitude of the mother. the stoics, that the whole body and soul give the sperm; and hence arise the likenesses in the characters and faces of the children, as a painter in his copy imitates the colors in a picture before him. women have a concurrent emission of seed; if the feminine seed have the predominancy, the child resembles the mother; if the masculine, the father. chapter xii. how it comes to pass that children have a greater similitude with strangers than with their parents. the greatest part of physicians affirm, that this happens casually and fortuitously; for, when the sperm of the man and woman is too much refrigerated, then children carry a dissimilitude to their parents. empedocles, that a woman's imagination in conception impresses a shape upon the infant; for women have been enamoured with images and statues, and the children which were born of them gave their similitudes. the stoics, that the resemblances flow from the sympathy and consent of minds, through the insertion of effluvias and rays, not of images or pictures. chapter xiii. whence ariseth barrenness in women, and impotency in men? the physicians maintain, that sterility in women can arise from the womb; for if it be after any ways thus affected, there will be a barrenness,--if it be more condensed, or more thin, or more hardened, or more callous, or more carneous; or it may be from languor, or from an atrophy or vicious condition of body; or, lastly, it may arise from a twisted or distorted position. diocles holds that the sterility in men ariseth from some of these causes,--either that they cannot at all ejaculate any sperm, or if they do, it is less than nature doth require, or else there is no generative faculty in the sperm, or the genital members are flagging; or from the obliquity of the yard. the stoics attribute the cause of sterility to the contrariant qualities and dispositions of those who lie with one another; but if it chance that these persons are separated, and there happen a conjunction of those who are of a suitable temperament, then there is a commixture according to nature, and by this means an infant is formed. chapter xiv. how it arises that mules are barren. alcmaeon says, that the barrenness of the male mules ariseth from the thinness of the genital sperm, that is, the seed is too chill; the female mules are barren, because the womb does not open its mouth (as he expresses it). empedocles, the matrix of the mule is so small, so depressed, so narrow, so invertedly growing to the belly, that the sperm cannot be regularly ejaculated into it, and if it could, there would be no capacity to receive it. diocles concurs in this opinion with him; for, saith he, in our anatomical dissection of mules we have seen that their matrices are of such configurations; and it is possible that there may be the same reason why some women are barren. chapter xv. whether the infant in the mother's womb be an animal. plato says, that the embryo is an animal; for, being contained in the mother's womb, motion and aliment are imparted to it. the stoics say that it is not an animal, but to be accounted part of the mother's belly; like as we see the fruit of trees is esteemed part of the trees, until it be full ripe; then it falls and ceaseth to belong to the tree; thus it is with the embryo. empedocles, that the embryo is not an animal, yet whilst it remains in the belly it breathes. the first breath that it draws as an animal is when the infant is newly born; then the child having its moisture separated, the extraneous air making an entrance into the empty places, a respiration is caused in the infant by the empty vessels receiving of it. diogenes, that infants are nurtured in the matrix inanimate, yet they have a natural heat; but presently, when the infant is cast into the open air, its heat brings air into the lungs, and so it becomes an animal. herophilus acknowledgeth that a natural, but not an animal motion, and that the nerves are the cause of that motion; that then they become animals, when being first born they suck in something of the air. chapter xvi. how embryos are nourished, or how the infant in the belly receives its aliment. democritus and epicurus say, that the embryos in the womb receive their aliment by the mouth, for we perceive, as soon as ever the infant is born, it applies its mouth to the breast; in the wombs of women (our understanding concludes) there are little dugs, and the embryos have small mouths by which they receive their nutriment. the stoics, that by the secundines and navel they partake of aliment, and therefore the midwife instantly after their birth ties the navel, and opens the infant's mouth, that it may receive another sort of aliment. alcmaeon, that they receive their nourishment from every part of the body; as a sponge sucks in water. chapter xvii. what part of the body is first formed in the womb. the stoics believe that the whole is formed at the same time. aristotle, as the keel of a ship is first made, so the first part that is formed is the loins. alcmaeon, the head, for that is the commanding and the principal part of the body. the physicians, the heart, in which are the veins and arteries. some think the great toe is first formed; others affirm the navel. chapter xviii. whence is it that infants born in the seventh month are born alive. empedocles says, that when the human race took first its original from the earth, the sun was so slow in its motion that then one day in its length was equal to ten months, as now they are; in process of time one day became as long as seven months are; and there is the reason that those infants which are born at the end of seven months or ten months are born alive, the course of nature so disposing that the infant shall be brought to maturity in one day after that night in which it is begotten. timaeus says, that we count not ten months but nine, by reason that we reckon the first conception from the stoppage of the menstruas; and so it may generally pass for seven months when really there are not seven; for it sometimes occurs that even after conception a woman is purged to some extent. polybus, diocles, and the empirics, acknowledge that the eighth month gives a vital birth to the infant, though the life of it is more faint and languid; many therefore we see born in that month die out of mere weakness. though we see many born in that month arrive at the state of man, yet (they affirm) if children be born in that month, none wish to rear them. aristotle and hippocrates, that if the womb is full in seven months, then the child falls from the mother and is born alive, but if it falls from her but is not nourished, the navel being weak on account of the weight of the infant, then it doth not thrive; but if the infant continues nine months in the womb, and then comes forth from the woman, it is entire and perfect. polybus, that a hundred and eighty-two days and a half suffice for the bringing forth of a living child; that is, six months, in which space of time the sun moves from one tropic to the other; and this is called seven months, for the days which are over plus in the sixth are accounted to give the seventh month. those children which are born in the eighth month cannot live, for, the infant then falling from the womb, the navel, which is the cause of nourishment, is thereby too much wrenched; and is the reason that the infant languishes and hath an atrophy. the astrologers, that eight months are enemies to every birth, seven are friends and kind to it. the signs of the zodiac are then enemies, when they fall upon those stars which are lords of houses; whatever infant is then born will have a life short and unfortunate. those signs of the zodiac which are malevolent and injurious to generation are those pairs of which the final is reckoned the eighth from the first, as the first and the eighth, the second and the ninth, etc; so is the ram unsociable with scorpio, the bull with sagittarius, the twins with the goat, the crab with aquarius, the lion with pisces, the virgin with the ram. upon this reason those infants that are born in the seventh or tenth months are like to live, but those in the eighth month will die. chapter xix. of the generation of animals, how animals are begotten, and whether they are obnoxious to corruption. those philosophers who entertain the opinion that the world had an original do likewise assert that all animals are generated and corruptible. the followers of epicurus, who gives an eternity to the world, affirm the generation of animals ariseth from the various permutation of parts mutually among themselves, for they are parts of this world. with them anaxagoras and euripides concur: nothing dies, different changes give their various forms. anaximander's opinion is, that the first animals were generated in moisture, and were enclosed in bark on which thorns grew; but in process of time they came upon dry land, and this thorny bark with which they were covered being broken, they lived only for a short space of time. empedocles says, that the first generation of animals and plants was by no means completed, for the parts were disjoined and would not admit of a union; the second preparation and for their being generated was when their parts were united and appeared in the form of images; the third preparation for generation was when their parts mutually amongst themselves gave a being to one another; the fourth, when there was no longer a mixture of like elements (as earth and water), but a union of animals among themselves,--in some the nourishment being made dense, in others female beauty provoking a desire of spermatic motion. all sorts of animals are discriminated by their proper temperament and constitution; some are carried by a proper appetite and inclination to water, some, which partake of a more fiery quality, to live in the air those that are heavier incline to the earth; but those animals whose parts are of a just temperament are fitted equally for all places. chapter xx. how many species of animals there are, and whether all animals have the endowments of sense and reason. there is a certain treatise of aristotle, in which animals are distributed into four kinds, terrestrial, aqueous, fowl, and heavenly; and he calls the stars and the world too animals, yea, and god himself he posits to be an animal gifted with reason and immortal. democritus and epicurus consider all animals rational which have their residence in the heavens. anaxagoras says that animals have only that reason which is operative, but not that which is passive, which is justly styled the interpreter of the mind, and is like the mind itself. pythagoras and plato, that the souls of all those who are styled brutes are rational; but by the evil constitution of their bodies, and because they have a want of a discoursive faculty, they do not conduct themselves rationally. this is manifested in apes and dogs, which have inarticulate voice but not speech. diogenes, that this sort of animals are partakers of intelligence and air, but by reason of the density in some parts of them, and by the superfluity of moisture in others, they neither enjoy understanding nor sense; but they are affected as madmen are, the commanding rational part being defectuous and injured. chapter xxi. what time is required to shape the parts of animals in the womb. empedocles believes, that the joints of men begin to be formed from the thirty-sixth day, and their shape is completed in the nine and fortieth. asclepiades, that male embryos, by reason of a greater natural heat, have their joints begun to be formed in the twenty-sixth day,--many even sooner,--and that they are completed in all their parts on the fiftieth day; the parts of the females are articulated in two months, but by the defect of heat are not consummated till the fourth; but the members of brutes are completed at various times, according to the commixture of the elements of which they consist. chapter xxii. of what elements each of the members of us men is composed. empedocles says, that the fleshy parts of us are constituted by the contemperation of the four elements in us; earth and fire mixed with a double proportion of water make nerves; but when it happens that the nerves are refrigerated where they come in contact with the air, then the nails are made; the bones are produced by two parts of water and the same of air, with four parts of fire and the same of earth, mixed together; sweat and tears flow from liquefaction of bodies. chapter xxiii. what are the causes of sleep and death? alcmaeon says, that sleep is caused when the blood retreats to the concourse of the veins, but when the blood diffuses itself then we awake and when there is a total retirement of the blood, then men die. empedocles, that a moderate cooling of the blood causeth sleep, but a total remotion of heat from blood causeth death. diogenes, that when all the blood is so diffused as that it fills all the veins, and forces the air contained in them to the back and to the belly that is below it, the breast being thereby more heated, thence sleep arises, but if everything that is airy in the breast forsakes the veins, then death succeeds. plato and the stoics, that sleep ariseth from the relaxation of the sensitive spirit, it not receiving such total relaxing as if it fell to the earth, but so that that spirit is carried about the intestine, parts of the eyebrows, in which the principal part has its residence; but when there is a total relaxing of the sensitive spirit, death ensues. chapter xxiv. when and from whence the perfection of a man commences. heraclitus and the stoics say, that men begin their completeness when the second septenary of years begins, about which time the seminal serum is emitted. trees first begin their perfection when they give their seeds; till then they are immature, imperfect, and unfruitful. after the same manner a man is completed in the second septenary of years, and is capable of learning what is good and evil, and of discipline therein. chapter xxv. whether sleep or death appertains to the soul or body. aristotle's opinion is, that both the soul and body sleep; and this proceeds from the evaporation in the breast, which doth steam and arise into the head, and from the aliment in the stomach, whose proper heat is cooled in the heart. death is the perfect refrigeration of all heat in body; but death is only of the body, and not of the soul, for the soul is immortal. anaxagoras thinks, that sleep makes the operations of the body to cease; it is a corporeal passion and affects not the soul. death is the separation of the soul from the body. leucippus, that sleep is only of the body; but when the smaller particles cause excessive evaporation from the soul's heat, this makes death; but these affections of death and sleep are of the body, not of the soul. empedocles, that death is nothing else but separation of those fiery parts by which man is composed, and according to this sentiment both body and soul die; but sleep is only a smaller separation of the fiery qualities. chapter xxvi. how plants increase. plato and empedocles believe, that plants are animals, and are informed with a soul; of this there are clear arguments, for they have tossing and shaking, and their branches are extended; when the woodmen bend them they yield, but they return to their former straightness and strength again when they are let loose, and even carry up weights that are laid upon them. aristotle doth grant that they live, but not that they are animals; for animals are affected with appetite, sense, and reason. the stoics and epicureans deny that they are informed with a soul; by reason that all sorts of animals have either sense, appetite, or reason; but plants act fortuitously, and not by means of any soul. empedocles, that the first of all animals were trees, and they sprang from the earth before the sun in its motion enriched the world, and before day and night were distinguished; but by the harmony which is in their constitution they partake of a masculine and feminine nature; and they increase by that heat which is exalted out of the earth, so that they are parts belonging to it, as embryos in the womb are parts of the womb. fruits in plants are excrescences proceeding from water and fire; but the plants which lack water, when this is dried up by the heat of summer, shed their leaves; whereas they that have plenty thereof keep their leaves on, as the olive, laurel, and palm. the differences of their moisture and juice arise from the difference of particles and various other causes, and they are discriminated by the various particles that feed them. and this is apparent in vines for the excellence of wine flows not from the difference in the vines, but from the soil from whence they receive their nutriment. chapter xxvii. of nutrition and growth. empedocles believes, that animals are nourished by the remaining in them of that which is proper to their own nature; they are augmented by the application of heat; and the subtraction of either of these makes them to languish and decay. the stature of men in this present age, if compared with the magnitude of those men which were first produced, is only a mere infancy. chapter xxviii. whence it is that in animals there are appetites and pleasures. empedocles says that the want of those elements which compose animals gives to them appetite, and pleasures spring from humidity. as to the motions of dangers and such like things as perturbations, etc.... chapter xxix. what is the cause of a fever, or whether it is an affection of the body annexed to a primary passion erasistratus gives this definition of a fever: a fever is a quick motion of blood, not produced by our consent, which enters into the vessels, the seat of the vital spirits. this we see in the sea; it is in a serene calm when nothing disturbs it, but is in motion when a violent preternatural wind blows upon it, and then it rageth and is circled with waves. after this manner it is in the body of man; when the blood is in a nimble agitation, then it falls upon those vessels in which the spirits are, and there being in an extraordinary heat, it fires the whole body. the opinion that a fever is an appendix to a preceding affection pleaseth him. diocles proceeds after this manner: those things which are internal and latent are manifested by those which externally break forth and appear; and it is clear to us that a fever is annexed to certain outward affections, for example, to wounds, inflaming tumors, inguinary abscesses. chapter xxx. of health, sickness, and old age. alcmaeon says that the preserver of health is an equal proportion of the qualities of heat, moisture, cold, dryness, bitterness, sweetness, and the other qualities; on the contrary, the prevailing empire of one above the rest is the cause of diseases and author of destruction. the direct cause of disease is the excess of heat or cold, the formal cause is excess or defect, the place is the blood or brain. but health is the harmonious commixture of the elements. diocles, that sickness for the most part proceeds from the irregular disposition of the elements in the body, for that makes an ill habit or constitution of it. erasistratus, that sickness is caused by the excess of nourishment, indigestion, and corruptions; on the contrary, health is the moderation of the diet, and the taking that which is convenient and sufficient for us. it is the unanimous opinion of the stoics that the want of heat brings old age, for (they say) those persons in whom heat more abounds live the longer. asclepiades, that the ethiopians soon grow old, and at thirty years of age are ancient men, their bodies being excessively heated and scorched by the sun; in britain persons live a hundred and twenty years, on account of the coldness of the country, and because the people keep the fiery element within their bodies; the bodies of the ethiopians are more fine and thin, because they are relaxed by the sun's heat, while they who live in northern countries are condensed and robust, and by consequence are more long lived. end of three--------abstract of a discourse showing that the stoics speak greater improbabilities than the poets. pinder's caeneus hath been taken to task by several, for being improbably feigned, impenetrable by steel and impassible in his body, and so descending, into hell without a wound. and with sound foot parting in two the ground. but the stoics' lapithes, as if they had carved him out of the very adamantine matter of impassibility itself, though he is not invulnerable, nor exempt from either sickness or pain, yet remains fearless, regretless, invincible, and unconstrainable in the midst of wounds, dolors, and torments, and in the very subversions of the walls of his native city, and other such like great calamities. again, pindar's caeneus is not wounded when struck; but the stoics' wise man is not detained when shut up in a prison, suffers no compulsion by being thrown down a precipice, is not tortured when on the rack, takes no hurt by being maimed, and when he catches a fall in wrestling he is still unconquered; when he is encompassed with a vampire, he is not besieged; and when sold by his enemies, he is still not made a prisoner. the wonderful man is like to those ships that have inscribed upon them a prosperous voyage, or protecting providence, or a preservative against dangers, and yet for all that endure storms, and are miserably shattered and overturned. euripides's iolaus of a feeble, superannuated old man, by means of a certain prayer, became on a sudden youthful and strong for battle; but the stoics wise man was yesterday most detestable and the worst of villains, but today is changed on a sudden into a state of virtue, and is become of a wrinkled, pale fellow, and as aeschylus speaks, of an old sickly wretch with stitch in 's back, distent with rending pains as on a rack, a gallant, godlike, and beauteous person. the goddess minerva took from ulysses his wrinkles, baldness, and deformity, to make him appear a handsome man. but these men's wise man, though old age quits not his body, but contrariwise still lays on and heaps more upon it, though he remains (for instance) humpbacked, toothless, one-eyed, is yet neither deformed, disfigured, nor ill-favored. for as beetles are said to relinquish perfumes and to pursue after ill scents; so stoical love, having used itself to the most foul and deformed persons, if by means of philosophy they change into good form and comeliness, becomes presently disgusted. he that in the stoics' account was in the forenoon (for example) the worst man in the world is in the afternoon the best of men; and he that falls asleep a very sot, dunce, miscreant, and brute, nay, by jove, a slave and a beggar to boot, rises up the same day a prince, a rich and a happy man, and (which is yet more) a continent, just, determined, and unprepossessed person;--not by shooting forth out of a young and tender body a downy beard or the sprouting tokens of mature youth, but by having in a feeble, soft, unmanful, and undetermined mind, a perfect intellect, a consummate prudence, a godlike disposition, an unprejudiced science, and an unalterable habit. all this time his viciousness gives not the least ground in order to it, but he becomes in an instant, i had almost said, of the vilest brute, a sort of hero, genius, or god. for he that receives his virtue from the stoics portico may say, ask what thou wilt, it shall be granted thee. (from menander) it brings wealth along with it, it contains kingship in it, it confers fortune; it renders men prosperous, and makes them to want nothing and to have a sufficiency of everything, though they have not one drachm of silver in the house. the fabular relations of the poets are so careful of decorum, that they never leave a hercules destitute of necessaries; but those still spring, as out of some fountain, as well for him as for his companions. but he that hath received of the stoics amalthaea becomes indeed a rich man, but he begs his victuals of other men; he is a king, but resolves syllogisms for hire; he is the only man that hath all things, but yet he pays rent for the house he lives in, and oftentimes buys bread with borrowed money, or else begs it of those that have nothing themselves. the king of ithaca begs with a design that none may know who he is, and makes himself as like a dirty sorry beggar ("odyssey," xvi. 273.) as he can. but he that is of the portico, while he bawls and cries out, it is i only that am a king, it is i only that am a rich man, is yet many times seen at other people's doors saying:- on poor hipponax, pray, some pity take, bestow an old cast coat for heaven's sake; i'm well-nigh dead with cold, and all o'er quake. end of four--------------symposiacs. book 1. some, my dear sossius senecio imagine that this sentence, [greek omitted] was principally designed against the stewards of a feast, who are usually troublesome and press liquor too much upon the guests. for the dorians in sicily (as i am informed) called the steward, [greek omitted] a remembrancer. others think that this proverb admonisheth the guests to forget everything that is spoken or done in company; and agreeably to this, the ancients used to consecrate forgetfulness with a ferula to bacchus, thereby intimating that we should either not remember any irregularity committed in mirth and company, or apply a gentle and childish correction to the faults. but because you are of opinion (as euripides says) that to forget absurdities is indeed a piece of wisdom, but to deliver over to oblivion all sort of discourse that merry meetings do usually produce is not only repugnant to that endearing quality that most allow to an entertainment, but against the known practice of the greatest philosophers (for plato, xenophon, aristotle, speusippus, epicurus, prytanis, hieronymus, dion the academic, have thought it a worthy and noble employment to deliver down to us those discourses they had at table), and since it is your pleasure that i should gather up the chiefest of those scattered topics which both at rome and greece amidst our cups and feasting we have disputed on, in obedience to your commands i have sent three books, each containing ten problems; and the rest shall quickly follow, if these find good acceptance and do not seem altogether foolish and impertinent. question i. whether at table it is allowable to philosophize? sossius, senecio, aristo, plutarch, crato, and others. the first question is, whether at table it is allowable to philosophize? for i remember at a supper at athens this doubt was started, whether at a merry meeting it was fit to use philosophical discourse, and how far it might be used? and aristo presently cried out: what then, for heaven's sake, are there any that banish philosophy from company and wine? and i replied: yes, sir, there are, and such as with a grave scoff tell us that philosophy, like the matron of the house, should never be heard at a merry entertainment; and commend the custom of the persians, who never let their wives appear, but drink, dance, and wanton with their whores. this they propose for us to imitate; they permit us to have mimics and music at our feasts, but forbid philosophy; she, forsooth, being very unfit to be wanton with us, and we in a bad condition to be serious. isocrates the rhetorician, when at a drinking bout some begged him to make a speech, only returned: with those things in which i have skill the time doth not suit; and in those things with which the time suits i have no skill. and crato cried out: by bacchus, he was right to forswear talk, if he designed to make such long-winded discourses as would have spoiled all mirth and conversation; but i do not think there is the same reason to forbid philosophy as to take away rhetoric from our feasts. for philosophy is quite of another nature; it is an art of living, and therefore must be admitted into every part of our conversation, into all our gay humors and our pleasures, to regulate and adjust them, to proportion the time, and keep them from excess; unless, perchance, upon the same scoffing pretence of gravity, they would banish temperance, justice, and moderation. it is true, were we to feast before a court, as those that entertained orestes, and were silence enjoined by law, that might prove no mean cloak of our ignorance; but if bacchus is really [greek omitted] (a looser of everything), and chiefly takes off all restraints and bridles from the tongue, and gives the voice the greatest freedom, i think it is foolish and absurd to deprive that time in which we are usually most talkative of the most useful and profitable discourse; and in our schools to dispute of the offices of company, in what consists the excellence of a guest, how mirth, feasting, and wine are to be used and yet deny philosophy a place in these feasts, as if not able to confirm by practice what by precepts it instructs. and when you affirmed that none ought to oppose what crato said, but determine what sorts of philosophical topics were to be admitted as fit companions at a feast, and so avoid that just and pleasant taunt put upon the wrangling disputers of the age, come now to supper, that we may contend; and when you seemed concerned and urged us to speak to that head, i first replied: sir, we must consider what company we have; for if the greater part of the guests are learned men,--as for instance, at agatho's entertainment, characters like socrates, phaedrus, pausanias, euryximachus; or at callias's board, charmides, antisthenes, hermogenes, and the like,--we will permit them to philosohize, and to mix bacchus with the muses as well as with the nymphs; for the latter make him wholesome and gentle to the body, and the other pleasant and agreeable to the soul. and if there are some few illiterate persons present, they, as consonants with vowels, in the midst of the other learned, will participate not altogether inarticulately and insignificantly. but if the greater part consists of such who can better endure the noise of any bird, fiddle-string, or piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher, pisistratus hath shown us what to do; for being at difference with his sons, when he heard his enemies rejoiced at it, in a full assembly he declared that he had endeavored to persuade his sons to submit to him, but since he found them obstinate, he was resolved to yield and submit to their humors. so a philosopher, midst those companions that slight his excellent discourse, will lay aside his gravity, follow them, and comply with their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well that men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst they are piqued upon or repartee. for it is not only (as plato says) the highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so; but it is the top of wisdom to philosophize, yet not appear to do it; and in mirth to do the same with those that are serious, and still seem in earnest. for as in euripides, the bacchae, though unprovided of iron weapons and unarmed, wounded their invaders with their boughs, thus the very jests and merry talk of true philosophers move those that are not altogether insensible. i think there are topics fit to be used at table, some of which reading and study give us, others the present occasion; some to incite to study, others to piety and great and noble actions, others to make us rivals of the bountiful and kind; which if a man cunningly and without any apparent design inserts for the instruction of the rest, he will free these entertainments from many of those considerable evils which usually attend them. some that put borage into the wine, or sprinkle the floor with water in which verbena and maiden-hair have been steeped, as good raise mirth and jollity in the guests (in imitation of homer's helen, who with some medicament diluted the pure wine she had prepared), do not understand that that fable, coming from round egypt, after a long way ends at last in easy and fit discourse. for whilst they were drinking helen relates the story of ulysses, how fortune's spite the hero did control, and bore his troubles with a manly soul. ("odyssey," iv. 242.) for that, in my opinion, was the nepenthe, the care-dissolving medicament, viz, that story exactly fitted to the then disasters and juncture of affairs. the pleasing men, though they designedly and apparently instruct, draw on their maxims rather with persuasive and smooth arguments, than the violent force of demonstrations. you see that even plato in his symposium, where he disputes of the chief end, the chief good, and is altogether on subjects theological, doth not lay down strong and close demonstrations; he doth not make himself ready for the contest (as he is wont) like a wrestler, that he may take the firmer hold of his adversary and be sure of giving him the trip; but draws men on by more soft and pliable attacks, by pleasant fictions and pat examples. besides the questions should be easy, the problems known, the interrogations plain, familiar, and not intricate and dark that they might neither vex the unlearned, nor fright them from the disquisition. for--as it is allowable to dissolve our entertainment into a dance, but if we force our guests to toss quoits or play at cudgels, we shall not only make our feast unpleasant, but hurtful and unnatural--thus light and easy disquisitions do pleasantly and profitably excite us, but we must forbear all contentions and (to use democritus's word) wrangling disputes, which perplex the proposers with intricate and inexplicable doubts, and trouble all the others that are present. our discourse should be like our wine, common to all, and of which every one may equally partake; and they that propose hard problems seem no better fitted for society than aesop's fox and crane. for the fox vexed the crane with thin broth poured out upon a plain table, and laughed at her when he saw her, by reason of the narrowness of her bill and the thinness of the broth, incapable of partaking what he had prepared; and the crane, in requital, inviting the fox to supper, brought forth her dainties in a pot with a long and narrow neck, into which she could conveniently thrust her bill, whilst the fox could not reach one bit. just so, when philosophers midst their cups dive into minute and logical disputes, they are very troublesome to those that cannot follow them through the same depths; and those that bring in idle songs, trifling disquisitions, common talk, and mechanical discourse destroy the very end of conversation and merry entertainments, and abuse bacchus. therefore, as when phrynichus and aeschylus brought tragedy to discourse of fictions and misfortunes, it was asked, what is this to bacchus?--so methinks, when i hear some pedantically drawing a syllogism into table-talk, i have reason to cry out, sir, what is this to bacchus? perchance one, the great bowl standing in the midst, and the chaplets given round, which the god in token of the liberty he bestows sets on every head, sings one of those songs called [greek omitted] (crooked or obscure); this is not fit nor agreeable to a feast. though some say these songs were not dark and intricate composures; but that the guests sang the first song all together, praising bacchus and describing the power of the god; and the second each man sang singly in his turn, a myrtle bough being delivered to every one in order, which they call an [greek omitted] because he that received it was obliged [greek omitted] to sing; and after this a harp being carried round the company, the skilful took it, and fitted the music to the song; this when the unskilful could not perform, the song was called [greek omitted] because hard to them, and one in which they could not bear a part. others say this myrtle bough was not delivered in order, but from bed to bed; and when the uppermost of the first table had sung, he sent it to the uppermost of the second, and he to the uppermost of the third; and so the second in like manner to the second; and from these many windings and this circuit it was called [greek omitted] crooked. question ii. whether the entertainer should seat the guests, or let every man take his own place. timon, a guest, plutarch, plutarch's father, lamprias, and others. my brother timon, making a great entertainment, desired the guests as they came to seat themselves; for he had invited strangers and citizens, neighbors and acquaintance, and all sorts of persons to the feast. a great many being already come, a certain stranger at last appeared, dressed as fine as hands could make him, his clothes rich, and an unseemly train of foot-boys at his heels; he walking up to the parlor-door, and, staring round upon those that were already seated, turned his back and scornfully retired; and when a great many stepped after him and begged him to return, he said, i see no fit place left for me. at that, the other guests (for the glasses had gone round) laughed abundantly, and desired his room rather than his company. but after supper, my father addressing himself to me, who sat at another quarter of the table,--timon, said he, and i have a dispute, and you are to be judge, for i have been upon his skirts already about that stranger; for if according to my directions he had seated every man in his proper place, we had never been thought unskilful in this matter, by one whose art is great in ordering horse and foot. ("iliad," ii 554.) and story says that paulus aemilius, after he had conquered perseus the king of macedon, making an entertainment besides his costly furniture and extraordinary provision, was very critical in the order of his feast; saying, it is the same man's task to order a terrible battle and a pleasing, entertainment, for both of them require skill in the art of disposing right, and homer often calls the stoutest and the greatest princes [greek omitted] disposers of the people; and you use to say that the great creator, by this art of disposing, turned disorder into beauty, and neither taking away nor adding any new being, but setting everything in its proper place, out of the most uncomely figure and confused chaos produced this beauteous, this surprising face of nature that appears. in these great and noble doctrines indeed you instruct us; but our own observation sufficiently assures us, that the greatest profuseness in a feast appears neither delightful nor genteel, unless beautified by order. and therefore it is absurd that cooks and waiters should be solicitous what dish must be brought first, what next, what placed in the middle, and what last; and that the garlands, and ointment, and music (if they have any) should have a proper place and order assigned, and yet that the guests should be seated promiscuously, and no respect be had to age, honor, or the like; no distinguishing order by which the man in dignity might be honored, the inferior learn to give place, and the disposer be exercised in distinguishing what is proper and convenient. for it is not rational that, when we walk or sit down to discourse, the best man should have the best place, and not the same order be observed at table; or that the entertainer should in civility drink to one before another, and yet make no difference in their seats, at the first dash making the whole company one myconus (as they say), a hodge-podge and confusion. this my father brought for his opinion. and my brother said: i am not so much wiser than bias, that, since he refused to be arbitrator between two only of his friends, i should pretend to be a judge between so many strangers and acquaintance; especially since it is not a money matter, but about precedence and dignity, as if i invited my friends not to treat them kindly, but to abuse them. menelaus is accounted absurd and passed into a proverb, for pretending to advise when unasked; and sure he would be more ridiculous that instead of an entertainer should set up for a judge, when nobody requests him or submits to his determination which is the best and which the worst man in the company; for the guests do not come to contend about precedency, but to feast and be merry. besides, it is no easy task to distinguish for some claim respect by reason of their age, others--from their familiarity and acquaintance; and, as those that make declamations consisting of comparisons, he must have aristotle's [greek omitted] and thrasymachus's [greek omitted] (books that furnish him with heads of argument) at his fingers' ends; and all this to no good purpose or profitable effect but to bring vanity from the bar and the theatre into our feasts and entertainments, and, whilst by good fellowship endeavor to remit all other passions, especially pride and arrogance, from which, in my opinion we should be more careful to cleanse our souls than to wash our feet from dirt, that our conversation be free, simple, and full of mirth. and while by such meetings we strive to end all differences that have at any time risen amongst the invited, we should make them flame anew, and kindle them again by emulation, by thus humbling some and puffing up others. and if, according as we seat them, we should drink oftener and discourse more with some than others and set daintier dishes before them, instead of being friendly we should be lordly in our feasts. and if in other things we treat them all equally, why should we not begin at the first part, and bring it into fashion for all to take their seats promiscuously, without ceremony or pride, and to let them see, as soon as they enter, that they are invited to a dinner whose order is free and democratical, and not, as particular chosen men to the government of a city where aristocracy is the form; since the richest and the poorest sit promiscuously together. when this had been offered on both sides, and all present required my determination, i said: being an arbitrator and not a judge, i shall close strictly with neither side, but go indifferently in the middle between both. if a man invites young men, citizens, or acquaintance, they should (as timon says) be accustomed to be content with any place, without ceremony or concernment; and this good nature and unconcernedness would be an excellent means to preserve and increase friendship. but if we use the same method to strangers, magistrates, or old men, i have just reason to fear that, whilst we seem to thrust our pride at the fore-door, we bring it in again at the back, together with a great deal of indifferency and disrespect. but in this, custom and the established rules of decency must guide; or else let us abolish all those modes of respect expressed by drinking to or saluting first; which we do not use promiscuously to all the company but according to their worth we honor every one with better places, meat, and larger cups, ("iliad," xii. 311.) as agamemnon says, naming the place first, as the chiefest sign of honor. and we commend alcinous for placing his guest next himself:- he stout laomedon his son removed, who sat next him, for him he dearly loved; ("iliad," xx. 15.) for to place a suppliant stranger in the seat of his beloved son was wonderful kind, and extreme courteous. nay even amongst the gods themselves this distinction is observed; for neptune, though he came last into the assembly, sat in the middle seat, ("odyssey," vii. 170.) as if that was his proper place. and minerva seems to have that assigned her which is next jupiter himself; and this the poet intimates, when speaking of thetis he says, she sat next jove, minerva giving place. (ibid. xxiv. 100.) and pindar plainly says, she sits just next the thunder-breathing flames. indeed timon urges, we ought not to rob many to honor one, which he seems to do himself, even more than others; for he robs that which makes something that is individual common; and suitable honor to his worth is each man's possession. and he gives that preeminence to running fast and making haste, which belongs to virtue, kindred, magistracies, and such other qualities; and whilst he endeavors not to affront his guests, he necessarily falls into that very inconvenience; for he must affront every one by defrauding them of their proper honor. besides, in my opinion it is no hard matter to make this distinction, and seat our guests according to their quality; for first, it very seldom happens that many of equal honor are invited to the same banquet; and then, since there are many honorable places, you have room enough to dispose them according to content, if you can but guess that this man must be seated uppermost, that in the middle, another next to yourself, friend, acquaintance, tutor, or the like, appointing every one some place of honor; and as for the rest, i would supply their want of honor with some little presents, affability, and kind discourse. but if their qualities are not easy to be distinguished, and the men themselves hard to be pleased, see what device i have in that case; for i seat in the most honorable place my father, if invited; if not my grandfather, father-in-law, uncle, or somebody whom the entertainer hath a more particular reason to esteem. and this is one of the many rules of decency that we have from homer; for in his poem, when achilles saw menelaus and antilochus contending about the second prize of the horse-race, fearing that their strife and fury would increase, he gave the prize to another, under pretence of comforting and honoring eumelus, but indeed to take away the cause of their contention. when i had said this, lamprias, sitting (as he always doth) upon a low bed, cried out: sirs, will you give me leave to correct this sottish judge? and the company bidding him speak freely and tell me roundly of my faults, and not spare, he said: and who can forbear that philosopher who disposes of places at a feast according to the birth, wealth, or offices of the guests, as if they were in a theatre or the council house, so that pride and arrogance must be admitted even into our mirth and entertainments? in seating our guests we should not have any respect to honor, but mirth and conversation; not look after every man's quality, but their agreement and harmony with one another, as those do that join several different things in one composure. thus a mason doth not set an athenian or a spartan stone, because formed in a more noble country, before an asian or a spanish; nor a painter give the most costly color the chiefest place; nor a shipwright the corinthian fir or cretan cypress; but so distribute them as they will best serve to the common end, and make the whole composure strong, beautiful, and fit for use. nay, you see even the deity himself (by our pindar named the most skilful artificer) doth not everywhere place the fire above and the earth below; but, as empedocles hath it, the oysters coverings do directly prove, that heavy earth is sometimes rais'd above; not having that place that nature appoints, but that which is necessary to compound bodies and serviceable to the common end, the preservation of the whole. disorder is in everything an evil; but then its badness is principally discovered, when it is amongst men whilst they are making merry; for then it breeds contentions and a thousand unspeakable mischiefs, which to foresee and hinder shows a man well skilled in good order and disposing right. we all agreed that he had said well, but asked him why he would not instruct us how to order things aright, and communicate his skill. i am content, says he, to instruct you, if you will permit me to change the present order of the feast, and will yield as ready obedience to me as the thebans to epaminondas when he altered the order of their battle. we gave him full power; and he, having turned all the servants out, looked round upon every one, and said: hear (for i will tell you first) how i design to order you together. in my mind, the theban pammenes justly taxeth homer as unskilful in love matters, for setting together, in his description of an army, tribe and tribe, family and family; for he should have joined the lover and the beloved, so that the whole body being united in their minds might perfectly agree. this rule will i follow, not set one rich man by another, a youth by a youth, a magistrate by a magistrate, and a friend by a friend; for such an order is of no force, either to beget or increase friendship and good-will. but fitting that which wants with something that is able to supply it, next one that is willing to instruct i will place one that is as desirous to be instructed; next a morose, one good-natured; next a talkative old man a youth patient and eager for a story; next a boaster, a jeering smooth companion; and next an angry man, a quiet one. if i see a wealthy fellow bountiful and kind, i will take some poor honest man from his obscure place, and set him next, that something may run out of that full vessel to the other empty one. a sophister i will forbid to sit by a sophister, and one poet by another; for beggars beggars, poets envy poets. (hesiod, "work and days," 26) i separate the clamorous scoffers and the testy, by putting some good-nature between them, so they cannot jostle so roughly on one another; wrestlers, hunters, and farmers i put in one company. for some of the same nature, when put together, fight as cocks; others are very sociable as daws. drinkers and lovers i set together, not only those who (as sophocles says) feel the sting of masculine love, but those that are mad after virgins or married women; for they being warmed with the like fire, as two pieces of iron to be joined, will more readily agree; unless perhaps they both fancy the same person. question iii. upon what account is the place at the table called consular esteemed honorable. the same. this raised a dispute about the dignity of places, for the same seat is not accounted honorable amongst all nations; in persia the midst, for that is the place proper to the king himself; in greece the uppermost; at rome the lowermost of the middle bed, and this is called the consular; the greeks about pontus, and those of heraclea, reckon the uppermost of the middle bed to be the chief. but we were most puzzled about the place called consular; for though it is esteemed most honorable, yet it is not because it is either the first or the midst; and its other circumstances are either not proper to that alone, or very frivolous. though i confess three of the reasons alleged seemed to have something in them. the first, that the consuls, having dissolved the monarchy and reduced everything to a more equal level and popular estate, left the middle, the kingly place, and sat in a lower seat; that by this means their power and authority might be less subject to envy, and not so grievous to their fellow-citizens. the second, that, two beds being appointed for the invited guests, the third--and the first place in it--is most convenient for the master of the feast, from whence like a pilot, he can guide and order everything, and readily overlook the management of the whole affair. besides, he is not so far removed that he can easily discourse, talk to, and compliment his guests; for next below him his wife and children usually are placed; next above him the most honorable of the invited, that being the most proper place, as near the master of the feast. the third reason was, that it is peculiar to the this place to be most convenient for the despatch of any sudden business; for the roman consul will not as archias, the governor of thebes, say, when letters of importance are brought to him at dinner, "serious things to-morrow" and then throw aside the packet and take the great bowl; but he will be careful, circumspect, and mind it at that very instant. for not only (as the common saying hath it) each throw doth make the dicer fear, but even midst his feasting and his pleasure a magistrate should be intent on intervening business; and he hath this place appointed, as the most convenient for him to receive any message, answer it, or sign a bill; for there the second bed joining with the third, the turning at the corner leaves a vacant space, so that a notary, servant, guard, or a messenger from the army might approach, deliver the message, and receive orders; and the consul, having room enough to speak or use his hand, neither troubles any one, nor is hindered by any the guests. question iv. what manner of man should a director of a feast be? crato, theon, plutarch, and others. crato my relative, and theon my acquaintance, at a certain banquet, where the glasses had gone round freely, and a little stir arose but was suddenly appeased, began to discourse of the office of the steward of a feast; declaring that it was my duty to wear the chaplet, assert the decaying privilege, and restore that office which should take care for the decency and good order of the banquet. this proposal pleased every one, and they were all an end begging me to do it. well then, said i, since you will have it so, i make myself steward and director of you all, command the rest to drink every one what he will but crato and theon, the first proposers and authors of this decree, i enjoin to declare in short what qualifications fit a man for this office, what he should principally aim at and how behave himself towards those under his command. this is the subject, and let them agree amongst themselves which head each shall manage. they made some slight excuse at first; but the whole company urging them to obey, crato began thus. a captain of a watch (as plato says) ought to be most watchful and diligent himself, and the director of merry companions ought to be the best. and such a one he is, that will not be easily overtaken or apt to refuse a glass; but as cyrus in his epistle to the spartans says, that in many other things he was more fit than his brother to be a king, and chiefly because he could bear abundance of wine. for one that is drunk must have an ill carriage and be apt to affront; and he that is perfectly sober must be unpleasant, and fitter to be a governor of a school than of a feast. pericles as often as he was chosen general, when he put on his cloak, used to say to himself, as it were to refresh his memory, take heed, pericles, thou dost govern freemen, thou dost govern greeks, thou dost govern athenians. so let our director say privately to himself, thou art a governor over friends, that he may remember to neither suffer them to be debauched nor stint their mirth. besides he ought to have some skill in the serious studies of the guests and not be altogether ignorant of mirth and humor yet i would have him (as pleasant wine ought to be) a little severe and rough, for the liquor will soften and smooth him, and make his temper pleasant and agreeable. for as xenophon says, that clearchus's rustic and morose humor in a battle, by reason of his bravery and heat, seemed pleasant and surprising; thus one that is not of a very sour nature, but grave and severe, being softened by a chirping cup becomes more pleasant and complaisant. but chiefly he should be acquainted with every one of the guests' humors, what alteration the liquor makes in him, what passion he is most subject to, and what quantity he can bear; for it is not to be supposed different sorts of water bear various proportions to different sorts of wine (which kings' cup-bearers understanding sometimes pour in more, sometimes less), and that man hath no such relation to them. this our director ought to know, and knowing, punctually observe; so that like a good musician, screwing up one and letting down another, he may make between these different natures a pleasing harmony and agreement; so that he shall not proportion his wine by measure, but give every one what was proper and agreeable, according to the present circumstances of time and strength of body. but if this is too difficult a task, yet it is necessary that a steward should know the common accidents of age and nature, such as these,--that an old man will be sooner overtaken than a youth, one that leaps about or talks than he that is silent or sits still, the thoughtful and melancholy than the cheerful and the brisk. and he that understands these things is much more able to preserve quietness and order, than one that is perfectly ignorant and unskilful. besides, i think none will doubt but that the steward ought to be a friend, and have no pique at any of the guests; for otherwise in his injunctions he will be intolerable, in his distributions unequal, in his jests apt to scoff and give offence. such a figure, theon, as out of wax, hath my discourse framed for the steward of a feast; and now i deliver him to you. and theon replied: he is welcome,--a very well-shaped gentleman, and fitted for the office; but whether i shall not spoil him in my particular application, i cannot tell. in my opinion he seems such a one as will keep an entertainment to its primitive institution, and not suffer it to be changed, sometimes into a mooting hall, sometimes a school of rhetoric, now and then a dicing room, a playhouse, or a stage. for do not you observe some making fine orations and putting cases at a supper, others declaiming or reading some of their own compositions, and others proposing prizes to dancers and mimics? alcibiades and theodorus turned polition's banquet into a temple of initiation, representing there the sacred procession and mysteries of ceres; now such things as these, in my opinion, ought not to be suffered by a steward, but he must permit such discourse only, such shows, such merriment, as promote the particular end and design of such entertainments; and that is, by pleasant conversation either to beget or maintain friendship and good-will among the guests; for an entertainment is only a pastime table with a glass of wine, ending in friendship through mutual goodwill. but now because things pure and unmixed are usually surfeiting and odious, and the very mixture itself, unless the simples be well proportioned and opportunely put together, spoils the sweetness and goodness of the composition; it is evident that there ought to be a director to take care that the mirth and jollity of the guests be exactly and opportunely tempered. it is a common saying that a voyage near the land and a walk near the sea are the best recreation. thus our steward should place seriousness and gravity next jollity and humor; that when they are merry, they should be on the very borders of gravity itself, and when grave and serious, they might be refreshed as sea-sick persons having an easy and short prospect to the mirth and jollity on land. for mirth may be exceeding useful, and make our grave discourses smooth and pleasant,- as near the bramble oft the lily grows, and neighboring rue commands the blushing rose. but against vain and empty tempers, that wantonly break in upon our feasts, like henbane mixed with the wine, he must advise the guests, lest scoffing and affronts creep in under these, lest in their questions or commands they grow scurrilous and abuse, as for instance by enjoining stutterers to sing, bald-pates to comb their heads, or a cripple to rise and dance. as the company abused agapestor the academic, one of whose legs was lame and withered, when in a ridiculing frolic they ordained that every man should stand upon his right leg and take off his glass, or pay a fine; and he, when it was his turn to command, enjoined the company to follow his example drink as he did, and having a narrow earthen pitcher brought in, he put his withered leg into it, and drank his glass and every one in the company, after a fruitless endeavor to imitate, paid his forfeit. it was a good humor of agapestor's and thus every little merry abuse must be as merrily revenged. besides he must give such commands as will both please and profit, putting such as are familiar and easy to the person, and when performed will be for his credit and reputation. a songster must be enjoined to sing, an orator to speak, a philosopher to solve a problem, and a poet to make a song; for every one very readily and willingly undertakes that in which he may outdo himself. an assyrian king by public proclamation promised a reward to him that would find out any new sort of luxury and pleasure. and let the governor, the king of an entertainments propose some pleasant reward for any one that introduceth inoffensive merriment, profitable delight and laughter, not such as attends scoffs and abusive jests, but kindness, pleasant humor, and goodwill; for these matters not being well looked after and observed spoil and ruin most of our entertainments. it is the office of a prudent man to hinder all sort of anger and contention; in the exchange, that which springs from covetousness; in the fencing and wrestling schools, from emulation; in offices and state affairs, from ambition; and in a feast or entertainment, from pleasantness and joke. question v. why it is commonly said that love makes a man a poet. sossius, plutarch, and others. one day when sossius entertained us, upon singing some sapphic verses, this question was started, how it could be true that love in all doth vigorous thoughts inspire, and teaches ignorants to tune the lyre? since philoxenus, on the contrary, asserts, that the cyclops with sweet-tongued muses cured his love. some said that love was bold and daring, venturing at new contrivances, and eager to accomplish, upon which account plato calls it the enterpriser of everything; for it makes the reserved man talkative, the modest complimental, the negligent and sluggish industrious and observant; and, what is the greatest wonder, a close, hard, and covetous fellow, if he happens to be in love, as iron in fire, becomes pliable and soft, easy, good-natured, and very pleasant; as if there were something in that common jest. a lover's purse is tied with the blade of a leek. others said that love was like drunkenness; it makes men warm, merry, and dilated; and, when in that condition, they naturally slide down to songs and words in measure; and it is reported of aeschylus, that he wrote tragedies after he was heated with a glass of wine; and my grandfather lamprias in his cups seemed to outdo himself in starting questions and smart disputing, and usually said that, like frankincense, he exhaled more freely after he was warmed. and as lovers are extremely pleased with the sight of their beloved, so they praise with as much satisfaction as they behold; and as love is talkative in everything, so more especially in commendation; for lovers themselves believe, and would have all others think, that the object of their passion is pleasing and excellent; and this made candaules the lydian force gyges into his chamber to behold the beauty of his naked wife. for they delight in the testimony of others, and therefore in all composures upon the lovely they adorn them with songs and verses, as we dress images with gold, that more may hear of them and that they may be remembered the more. for if they present a cock, horse, or any other thing to the beloved, it is neatly trimmed and set off with all the ornaments of art; and therefore, when they would present a compliment, they would have it curious, pleasing, as verse usually appears. sossius applauding these discourses added: perhaps we may make a probable conjecture from theophrastus's discourse of music, for i have lately read the book. theophrastus lays down three causes of music,--grief, pleasure and enthusiasm; for each of these changes the usual tone, and makes the voice slide into a cadence; for deep sorrow has something tunable in its groans, and therefore we perceive our orators in their conclusions, and actors in their complaints, are somewhat melodious, and insensibly fall into a tune. excess of joy provokes the more airy men to frisk and dance and keep their steps, though unskilful in the art; and, as pindar hath it, they shout, and roar, and wildly toss their heads. but the graver sort are excited only to sing, raise their voice, and tune their words into a sonnet. but enthusiasm quite changes the body and the voice, and makes it far different from its usual constitution. hence the very bacchae use measure, and the inspired give their oracles in measure. and we shall see very few madmen but are frantic in rhyme and rave in verse. this being certain, if you will but anatomize love a little, and look narrowly into it, it will appear that no passion in the world is attended with more violent grief, more excessive joy, or greater ecstasies and fury; a lover's soul looks like sophocles's city:- at once 'tis full of sacrifice, of joyful songs, of groans and cries.' (sophocles, "oedipus tyrannus," 4.) and therefore it is no wonder, that since love contains all the causes of music,--grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm,--and is besides industrious and talkative, it should incline us more than any other passion to poetry and songs. question vi. whether alexander was a great drinker. philinus, plutarch, and others. some said that alexander did not drink much, but sat long in company, discoursing with his friends; but philinus showed this to be an error from the king's diary, where it was very often registered that such a day, and sometimes two days together, the king slept after a debauch; and this course of life made him cold in love, but passionate and angry, which argues a hot constitution. and some report his sweat was fragrant and perfumed his clothes; which is another argument of heat, as we see the hottest and driest climates bear frankincense and cassia; for a fragrant smell, as theophrastus thinks, proceeds from a due concoction of the humors, when the noxious moisture is conquered by the heat. and it is thought probable, that he took a pique at calisthenes for avoiding his table because of the hard drinking, and refusing the great bowl called alexander's in his turn, adding, i will not drink of alexander's bowl, to stand in need of aesculapius's. and thus much of alexander's drinking. story tells us, that mithridates, the famous enemy of the romans, among other trials of skill that he instituted, proposed a reward to the greatest eater and the stoutest drinker in his kingdom. he won both the prizes himself; he outdrank every man living, and for his excellency that way was called bacchus. but this reason for his surname is a vain fancy and an idle story; for whilst he was an infant a flash of lightning burnt his cradle, but did his body no harm, and only left a little mark on his forehead, which his hair covered when he was grown a boy; and after he came to be a man, another flash broke into his bedchambers, and burnt the arrows in a quiver that was hanging under him; from whence his diviners presaged, that archers and light-armed men should win him considerable victories in his wars; and the vulgar gave him this name, because in those many dangers by lightning he bore some resemblance to the theban bacchus. from hence great drinkers were the subject of our discourse; and the wrestler heraclides (or, as the alexandrians mince it, heraclus), who lived but in the last age, was accounted one. he, when he could get none to hold out with him, invited some to take their morning's draught, others to dinner, to supper others, and others after, to take a merry glass of wine; so that as the first went off, the second came, and the third and fourth company and he all the while without any intermission took his glass round, and outsat all the four companies. amongst the retainers to drusus, the emperor tiberus's son, was a physician that drank down all the court; he, before he sat down, would usually take five or six bitter almonds to prevent the operation of the wine; but whenever he was forbidden that, he knocked under presently, and a single glass dozed him. some think these almonds have a penetrating, abstersive quality, are able to cleanse the face, and clear it from the common freckles; and therefore, when they are eaten, by their bitterness vellicate and fret the pores, and by that means draw down the ascending vapors from the head. but, in my opinion, a bitter quality is a drier, and consumes moisture; and therefore a bitter taste is the most unpleasant. for, as plato says, dryness, being an enemy to moisture, unnaturally contracts the spongy and tender nerves of the tongue. and green ulcers are usually drained by bitter injections. thus homer:- he squeezed his herbs, and bitter juice applied; and straight the blood was stanched, the sore was dried. ("iliad," xi. 846.) and he guesses well, that what is bitter to the taste is a drier. besides, the powders women use to dry up their sweat are bitter, and by reason of that quality astringent. this then being certain, it is no wonder that the bitterness of the almonds hinders the operation of the wine, since it dries the inside of the body and keeps the veins from being overcharged; for from their distention and disturbance they say drunkenness proceeds. and this conjecture is much confirmed from that which usually happens to a fox; for if he eats bitter almonds without drinking, his moisture suddenly fails, and it is present death. question vii. why old men love pure wine. plutarch and others. it was debated why old men loved the strongest liquors. some, fancying that their natural heat decayed and their constitution grew cold, said such liquors were most necessary and agreeable to their age; but this was mean and the obvious, and besides, neither a sufficient nor a true reason; for the like happens to all their other senses. for they are not easily moved or wrought on by any qualities, unless they are in intense degrees and make a vigorous impression; but the reason is the laxity of the habit of their body, for that, being grown lax and weak, loves a smart stroke. thus their taste is pleased most with strong sapors, their smelling with brisk odors; for strong and unalloyed qualities make a more pleasing impression on the sense. their touch is almost senseless to a sore, and a wound generally raises no sharp pain. the like also in their hearing may be observed; for old musicians play louder and sharper than others, that they may move their own dull tympanum with the sound. for what steel is to the edge in a knife, that spirit is to the sense in the body; and therefore, when the spirits fail, the sense grows dull and stupid, and cannot be raised, unless by something, such as strong wine, that makes a vigorous impression. question viii. why old men read best at a distance. plutarch, lamprias, and others. to my discourse in the former problem some objection may be drawn from the sense of seeing in old men; for, if they hold a book at a distance, they will read pretty well, nearer they cannot see a letter and this aeschylus means by these verses:- behold from far; for near thou canst not see; a good old scribe thou mayst much sooner be. and sophocles more plainly:- old men are slow in talk, they hardly hear; far off they see; but all are blind when near. and therefore, if old men's organs are more obedient to strong and intense qualities, why, when they read, do they not take the reflection near at hand, but, holding the book a good way off, mix and weaken it by the intervening air, as wine by water? some answered, that they did not remove the book to lesson the light, but to receive more rays, and let all the space between the letters and their eyes be filled with lightsome air. others agreed with those that imagine the rays of vision mix with one another; for since there is a cone stretched between each eye and the object, whose point is in the eye and whose basis is the object, it is probable that for some way each cone extends apart and by itself; but, when the distance increases, they mix and make but one common light; and therefore every object appears single and not two, though it is seen by both eyes at once; for the conjunction of the cones makes these two appearances but one. these things supposed, when old men hold the letters close to their eyes, the cones not being joined, but each apart and by itself, their sight is weak; but when they remove it farther, the two lights being mingled and increased, see better, as a man with both hands can hold that for which either singly is too weak. but my brother lamprias, though unacquainted with hieronymus's notions, gave us another reason. we see, said he, some species that come from the object to the eye, which at their first rise are thick and great; and therefore when near disturb old men, whose eyes are stiff and not easily penetrated; but when they are separated and diffused into the air, the thick obstructing parts are easily removed, and the subtile remainders coming to the eye gently and easily slide into the pores; and so the disturbance being less, the sight is more vigorous and clear. thus a rose smells most fragrant at a distance; but if you bring it near the nose, it is not so pure and delightful; and the reason is this,--many earthy disturbing particles are carried with the smell, and spoil the fragrancy when near, but in a longer passage those are lost, and the pure brisk odor, by reason of its subtility, reaches and acts upon the sense. but we, according to plato's opinion, assert that a bright spirit darted from the eye mixes with the light about the object, and those two are perfectly blended into one similar body; now these must be joined in due proportion one to another; for one part ought not wholly to prevail on the other, but both, being proportionally and amicably joined, should agree in one third common power. now this (whether flux, illuminated spirit, or ray) in old men being very weak, there can be no combination, no mixture with the light about the object; but it must be wholly consumed, unless, by removing the letters from their eyes, they lessen the brightness of the light, so that it comes to the sight not too strong or unmixed, but well proportioned and blended with the other. and this explains that common affection of creatures seeing in the dark; for their eyesight being weak is overcome and darkened by the splendor of the day; because the little light that flows from their eyes cannot be proportionably mixed with the stronger and more numerous beams; but it is proportionable and sufficient for the feeble splendor of the stars, and so can join with it, and cooperate to move the sense. question ix. why fresh water washes clothes better than salt. theon, themistocles, metrius, florus, plutarch; and others. theon the grammarian, when metrius florus gave us an entertainment, asked themistocles the stoic, why chrysippus, though he frequently mentioned some strange phenomena in nature (as that salt meat soaked in salt water grows fresher than before; fleeces of wool are more easily separated by a gentle than a quick and violent force, and men that are fasting eat slower than those who took a breakfast), yet never gave any reason for the appearance. and themistocles replied, that chrysippus only proposed such things by the by, as instances to correct us, who easily assent and without any reason to what seems likely, and disbelieve everything that seems unlikely at the first sight. but why, sir, are you concerned at this? for if you are speculative and would inquire into the causes of things you need not want subjects in your own profession; but pray tell me why homer makes nausicaa wash in the river rather than the sea, though it was near, and in all likelihood hotter, clearer, and fitter to wash with than that? and theon replied: aristotle hath already given an account for this from the grossness of the sea water; for in this an abundance of rough earthy particles is mixed, and those make it salt; and upon this account swimmers or any other weights sink not so much in sea water as in fresh for the latter, being thin and weak, yields to every pressure and is easily divided, because it is pure and unmixed and by reason of this subtility of parts it penetrates better than salt water, and so looseneth from the clothes the sticking particles of the spot. and is not this discourse of aristotle very probable? probable indeed, i replied, but not true; for i have observed that with ashes, gravel, or, if these are not to be gotten, with dust itself they usually thicken the water, as if the earthy particles being rough would scour better than fair water, whose thinness makes it weak and ineffectual. and therefore he is mistaken when he says the thickness of the sea water hinders the effect, since the sharpness of the mixed particles very much conduces to make it cleansing; for that open the pores, and draws out the stain. but since all oily matter is most difficult to be washed out and spots a cloth, and the sea is oily, that is the reason why it doth not scour as well as fresh and that it is oily, even aristotle himself asserts, for salt in his opinion hath some oil in it, and therefore makes candles, when sprinkled on them, burn the better and clearer than before. and sea water sprinkled on a flame increaseth it, and it more easily kindled than any other; in my opinion, makes it hotter than the fresh. and besides, i may urge another cause; for the end of washing is drying, and that seems cleanest which is driest; and the moisture that scours (as hellebore, with the humors that it purges) ought to fly away quickly together with the stain. the sun quickly draws out the fresh water, because it is so light but the salt water being rough lodges in the pores, and therefore is not easily dried. and theon replied: you say just nothing, sir; for aristotle in the same book affirms that those that wash in the sea, if they stand in sun, are sooner dried than those that wash in the fresh streams. if it is true, i am answered, he says so; but i hope that homer asserting the contrary will, by you especially, be more easily believed; for ulysses (as he writes) after his shipwreck meeting nausicaa, a frightful sight, and with the salt besmeared said to her maidens, retire a while, till i have washed my skin, and when he had leaped into the river, he from his head did scour the foaming sea. (see "odyssey," vi. 137, 218, 226.) the poet knew very well what happens in such a case; for when those that come wet out of the sea stand in the sun, the subtilest and lightest parts suddenly exhale, but the salt and rough particles stick upon the body in a crust, till they are washed away by the fresh water of a spring. question x. why at athens the chorus of the tribe aeantis was never determined to be the last. philopappus, marcus, milo, glaucias, plutarch, and others. when we were feasting at serapion's, who gave an entertainment after the tribe leontis under his order and direction had won the prize (for we were citizens and free of that tribe), a very pertinent discourse, and proper to the then occasion, happened. it had been a very notable trial of skill, the king philopappus being very generous and magnificent in his rewards, and defraying the expenses of all the tribes. he was at the same feast with us and being a very good-humored man and eager for instruction, he would now and then freely discourse of ancient customs, and as freely hear. marcus the grammarian began thus: neanthes the cyzicenian, in his book called the "fabulous narrations of the city," affirms that it was a privilege of the tribe aeantis that their chorus should never be determined to be the last. it is true, he brings some stories for confirmation of what he says; but if he falsifies, the matter is open, and let us all inquire after the reason of the thing. but, says milo, suppose it be a mere tale. it is no strange thing replied philopappus, if in our disquisitions after truth we meet now and then with such a thing as democritus the philosopher did; for he one day eating a cucumber, and finding it of a honey taste, asked his maid where she bought it; and she telling him in such a garden, he rose from table and bade her direct him to the place. the maid surprised asked him what he meant; and he replied, i must search after the cause of the sweetness of the fruit, and shall find it the sooner if i see the place. the maid with a smile replied, sit still, pray, sir, for i unwittingly put it into a honey barrel. and he, as it were discontented, cried out, shame take thee, yet i will pursue my purpose, and seek after the cause, as if this sweetness were a taste natural and proper to the fruit. therefore neither will we admit neanthes's credulity and inadvertency in some stories as an excuse and a good reason for avoiding this disquisition; for we shall exercise our thoughts by it, though no other advantage rises from that inquiry. presently every one poured out something in commendation of that tribe, mentioning every matter that made for its credit and reputation. marathon was brought in as belonging to it, and harmodius with his associates, by birth aphidneans, were also produced as glorious members of that tribe. the orator glaucias proved that that tribe made up the right wing in the battle at marathon, from the elegies of aeschylus, who had himself fought valiantly in the same encounter; and farther evinced that callimachus the field marshal was of that tribe, who behaved himself very bravely, and was the principal cause next to miltiades, with whose opinion he concurred, that that battle was fought. to this discourse of glaucias i added, that the edict which impowered miltiades to lead forth the athenians, was made when the tribe aeantis was chief of the assembly, and that in the battle of plataea the same tribe won the greatest glory; and upon that account, as the oracle directed, that tribe offered a sacrifice for this victory to the nymphs sphragitides, the city providing a victim and all other necessaries belonging to it. but you may observe (i continued) that other tribes likewise have their peculiar glories; and you know that mine, the tribe leontids, yields to none in any point of reputation. besides, consider whether it is not more probable that this was granted out of a particular respect, and to please ajax, from whom this tribe received its name; for we know he could not endure to be outdone, but was easily hurried on to the greatest enormities by his contentious and passionate humor; and therefore to comply with him and afford him some comfort in his disasters, they secured him from the most vexing grievance that follows the misfortune of the conquered, by ordering that his tribe should never be determined to be last. book ii. of the several things that are provided for an entertainment, some, my sossius senecio, are absolutely necessary; such are wine, bread, meat, lounges, and tables. others are brought in, not for necessity, but pleasure; such are songs, shows, mimics, and buffoons; which, when present, delight indeed, but when absent, are not eagerly desired; nor is the entertainment looked upon as mean because such things are wanting. just so of discourses; some the sober men admit as necessary to a banquet, and others for their pretty nice speculations, as more profitable and agreeable than the fiddle and the pipe. my former book gives you examples of both sorts. of the first are these, whether we should philosophize at table?--whether the entertainer should appoint proper seats, or leave the guests to agree upon there own? of the second, why lovers are inclined to poetry? and the question about the tribe of aeantis. the former i call properly [greek omitted] but both together i comprehend under the general name of symposiacs. they are promiscuously set down, not in the exact method, but as each singly occurred to memory. and let not my readers wonder that i dedicate these collections to you, which i have received from others or your own mouth; for if all learning is not bare remembrance, yet to learn and to remember are very commonly one and the same. question i what, as xenophon intimates, are the most agreeable questions and most pleasant raillery at an entertainment? sossius, senecio, and plutarch. now each book being divided into ten questions, that shall make the first in this, which socratial xenophon hath as it were proposed; for he tells that, gobryas banqueting with cyrus, amongst other things he found admirable in the persians, was surprised to hear them ask one another such questions that it was more pleasant to be interrogated than to be let alone, and pass such jests on one another that it was more pleasant to be jested on than not. for if some, even whilst they praise, offend, why should not their polite and neat facetiousness be admired, whose very raillery is delightful and pleasant to him that is the subject of it? once you said: i wish i could learn what kind of questions those are; for to be skilled in and make right use of apposite questions and pleasant raillery, i think is no small part of conversation. a considerable one, i replied; but pray observe whether xenophon himself, in his descriptions of socrates's and the persian entertainments, hath not sufficiently explained them. but if you would have my thoughts, first, men are pleased to be asked those questions to which they have an answer ready; such are those in which the persons asked have some skill and competent knowledge; for when the inquiry is above their reach, those that can return nothing are troubled, as if requested to give something beyond their power; and those that do answer, producing some crude and insufficient demonstration, must needs be very much concerned, and apt to blunder on the wrong. now, if the answer not only is easy but hath something not common, it is more pleasing to them that make it; and this happens, when their knowledge is greater than that of the vulgar, as suppose they are well skilled in points of astrology or logic. for not only in action and serious matters, but also in discourse, every one hath a natural disposition to be pleased (as euripides hath it) to seem far to outdo himself. and all are delighted when men put such questions as they understand, and would have others know that they are acquainted with; and therefore travellers and merchants are most satisfied when their company is inquisitive about other countries, the unknown ocean, and the laws and manners of the barbarians; they are very ready to inform them, and describe the countries and the creeks, imagining this to be some recompense for their toil, some comfort for the dangers they have passed. in short, whatever though unrequested, we are wont to discourse of, we are desirous to be asked; because then we seem to gratify those whom otherwise our prattle would disturb and force from our conversation. and this is the common disease of travellers. but more genteel and modest men love to be asked about those things which they have bravely and successfully performed, and which modesty will not permit to be spoken by themselves before company; and therefore nestor did well when, being acquainted with ulysses's desire of reputation, he said, tell, brave ulysses, glory of the greeks, how you the horses seized. ("iliad," x. 544.) for man cannot endure the insolence of those who praise themselves and repeat their own exploits, unless the company desires it and they are forced to a relation; therefore it tickles them to be asked about their embassies and administrations of the commonwealth, if they have done anything notable in either. and upon this account the envious and ill-natured start very few questions of that they sort; that thwart and hinder all such kind of motions, being very unwilling to give any occasion or opportunity for that discourse which shall tend to the advantage of the relater. in short, we please those to whom we put them, when we start questions about those matters which their enemies hate to hear. ulysses says to alcinous, you bid me tell what various ills i bore, that the sad tale might make me grieve the more. (sophocles, "oedipus at colonus," 510.) and oedipus says to the chorus, 'tis pain to raise again a buried grief. ("odyssey," ix. 12.) but euripides on the contrary, how sweet it is, when we are lulled in ease, to think of toils!--when well, of a disease! (euripides, "andromeda," frag. 131.) true indeed, but not to those that are still tossed, still under a misfortune. therefore be sure never ask a man about his own calamities; it is irksome to relate his losses of children or estate, or any unprosperous adventure by sea or land; but ask a man how he carried the cause, how he was caressed by the king, how he escaped such a storm, such an assault, thieves, and the like; this pleaseth him, he seems to enjoy it over again in his relation, and is never weary of the topic. besides, men love to be asked about their happy friends, or children that have made good progress in philosophy or the law, or are great at court; as also about the disgrace and open conviction of their enemies; or of such matters they are most eager to discourse, yet are cautious of beginning it themselves, lest they should seem to insult over and rejoice at the misery of others. you please a hunter if you ask him about dogs, a wrestler about exercise, and an amorous man about beauties; the ceremonious and superstitious man discourses about dreams, and what success he hath had by following the directions of omens or sacrifices, and by the kindness of the gods; and some questions concerning those things will extremely please him. he that inquires anything of an old man, though the story doth not at all concern him, wins his heart, and urges one that is very willing to discourse:- nelides nestor, faithfully relate how great atrides died, what sort of fate; and where was menelaus largely tell? did argos hold him when the hero fell? ("odyssey," iii. 247.) here is a multitude of questions and variety of subjects; which is much better than to confine and cramp his answers, and so deprive the old man of the most pleasant enjoyment he can have. in short, they that had rather please than distaste will still propose such questions, the answers to which shall rather get the praise and good-will than the contempt and hatred of the hearers. and so much of questions. as for raillery, those that cannot use it cautiously with art, and time it well, should never venture at it. for as in a slippery place, if you but just touch a man as you pass by, you throw him down; so when we are in drink, we are in danger of tripping at every little word that is not spoken with due address. and we are more apt to be offended with a joke than a plain and scurrilous abuse; for we see the latter often slip from a man unwittingly in passion, but consider the former as a thing voluntary, proceeding from malice and ill-nature; and therefore we are generally more offended at a sharp jeerer than a whistling snarler. such a jest has indeed something designedly malicious about it, and often seems to be an insult skilfully devised and prepared. for instance, he that calls thee salt-fish monger plainly and openly abuseth; but he that says, i remember when you wiped your nose upon your sleeve, maliciously jeers. such was cicero's to octavius, who was thought to be descended from an african slave; for when cicero spoke something, and octavius said he did not hear him, cicero rejoined, remarkable, for you have a hole through your ear. and melanthius, when he was ridiculed by a comedian, said, you pay me now something that you do not owe me. and upon this account jeers vex more; for like bearded arrows they stick a long while, and gall the wounded sufferer. their smartness is pleasant, and delights the company; and those that are pleased with the saving seem to believe the detracting speaker. for according to theophrastus, a jeer is a figurative reproach for some fault or misdemeanor; and therefore he that hears it supplies the concealed part, as if he knew and gave credit to the thing. for he that laughs and is tickled at what theocritus said to one whom he suspected of a design upon his clothes, and who asked him if he went to supper at such a place,--yes, he replied, i go, but shall likewise lodge there all night,--doth, as it were, confirm the accusation, and believe the fellow was a thief. and therefore an impertinent jeerer makes the whole company seem ill-natured and abusive, as being pleased with and consenting to the scurrility of the jeer. it was one of the excellent laws in sparta, that none should be bitter in their jests, and the jeered should patiently endure; but if he took offence, the other was to forbear, and pursue the frolic no farther. how is it possible therefore to determine such raillery as shall delight and please the person that is jested on, when to be smart without offence is no mean piece of cunning and address? first then, such as will vex and gall the conscious must please those that are clean, innocent, and not suspected of the matter. such a joke is xenophon's, when he pleasantly brings in a very ugly ill-looking fellow, and is smart upon him for being sambaulas's minion. such was that of aufidius modestus, who, when our friend quinitus in an ague complained his hands were cold, replied, sir, you brought them warm from your province; for this made quintius laugh, and extremely pleased him; yet it had been a reproach and abuse to a covetous and oppressing governor. thus socrates, pretending to compare faces with the beauteous critobulus, rallied only, and not abused. and alcibiades again was smart on socrates, as his rival in agatho's affection. kings are pleased when jests are put upon them as if they were private and poor men. such was the flatterer's to philip, who chided him: sir, don't i keep you? for those that mention faults of which the persons are not really guilty intimate those virtues with which they are really adorned. but then it is requisite that those virtues should be evident and certainly belong to them; otherwise the discourse will breed disturbance and suspicion. he that tells a very rich man that he will procure him a sum of money,--a temperate sober man, and one that drinks water only, that he is foxed, or hath taken a cup too much,--a hospitable, generous, good-humored man, that he is a niggard and pinch-penny,--or threatens an excellent lawyer to meet him at the bar,--must make the persons smile and please the company. thus cyrus was very obliging and complaisant, when he challenged his playfellows at those sports in which he was sure to be overcome. and ismenias piping at a sacrifice, when no good omens appeared, the man that hired him snatched the pipe, and played very ridiculously himself; and when all found fault, he said: to play satisfactorily is the gift of heaven. and ismenias with a smile replied: whilst i played, the gods were so well pleased that they were careless of the sacrifice; but to be rid of thy noise they presently received it. but more, those that jocosely put scandalous names upon things commendable, if it be opportunely done, please more than he that plainly and openly commends; for those that cover a reproach under fair and respectful words (as he that calls an unjust man aristides, a coward achilles) gall more than those that openly abuse. such is that of oedipus, in sophocles,- the faithful creon, my most constant friend. (sophocles, "oedipus tyrannus," 385.) the familiar irony in commendations answers to this on the other side. such socrates used, when he called the kind endeavor and industry of antisthenes to make men friends pimping, bawds-craft, and allurement; and others that called crates the philosopher, who wherever he went was caressed and honored, the door-opener. again, a complaint that implies thankfulness for a received favor is pleasant raillery. thus diogenes of his master antisthenes:- that man that made me leave my precious ore, clothed me with rags, and forced me to be poor; that man that made me wander, beg my bread, and scorn to have a house to hide my head. for it had not been half so pleasant to have said, that man that made me wise, content, and happy. and a spartan, making as if he would find fault with the master of the exercises for giving him wood that would not smoke, said, he will not permit us even to shed a tear. and he calls a hospitable man, and one that treats often, a kidnapper, and a tyrant who for a long time would not permit him to see his own table; and he whom the king hath raised and enriched, that says he had a design upon him and robbed him of his sleep and quiet. so if he that hath an excellent vintage should complain of aeschlus's cabeiri for making him want vinegar, as they haul jocosely threatened. for such as these have a pungent pleasantness, so that the praised are not offended nor take it ill. besides, he that would be civilly facetious must know the difference between a vice and a commendable study or recreation; for instance, between the love of money or contention and of music or hunting; for men are grieved if twitted with the former, but take it very well if they are laughed at for the latter. thus demosthenes the mitylenean was pleasant enough when, knocking at a man's door that was much given to singing and playing on the harp, and being bid come in, he said, i will, if you will tie up your harp. but the flatterer of lysimachus was offensive; for being frighted at a wooden scorpion that the king threw into his lap, and leaping out of his seat, he said after he knew the humor, and i'll fright your majesty too; give me a talent. in several things about the body too the like caution is to be observed. thus he that is jested on for a flat or hooked nose usually laughs at the jest. thus cassander's friend was not at all displeased when theophrastus said to him, 'tis strange, sir, that your eyes don't play, since your nose is so near and so well fitted for a pipe to give them the tune; and cyrus commanded a long hawk-nosed fellow to marry a flat-nosed girl, for then they would very well agree. but a jest on any for his stinking breath or filthy nose is irksome; for baldness it may be borne, but for blindness or infirmity in the eyes it is intolerable. it is true, antigonus would joke upon himself, and once, receiving a petition written in great letters, he said, this a man may read if he were stark blind. but he killed theocritus the chian for saying,--wh byzantine to pasiades saying, sir, your eyes are weak, replied, you upbraid me with this infirmity, not considering that thy son carries the vengeance of heaven on his back: now pasiades's son was hunch-backed. and archippus the popular athenian was much displeased with melanthius for being smart on his crooked back; for melanthius had said that he did not stand at the head of the state but bowed down before it. it is true, some are not much concerned at such jeers. thus antigonus's friend, when he had begged a talent and was denied, desired a guard, lest somebody should rob him of that talent he was now to carry home. different tempers make men differently affected, and that which troubles one is not regarded by another. epaminondas feasting with his fellow-magistrates drank vinegar; and some asking if it was good for his health, he replied, i cannot tell that, but i know it makes me remember what i drink at home. therefore it becomes every man that would rally, to look into the humors of his company, and take heed to converse without offence. love, as in most things else, so in this matter causes different effects; for some lovers are pleased and some displeased at a merry jest. therefore in this case a fit time must be accurately observed; for as a blast of wind puffs out a fire whilst it is weak and little, but when thoroughly kindled strengthens and increaseth it; so love, before it is evident and confessed, is displeased at a discoverer, but when it breaks forth and blazes in everybody's eyes, then it is delighted and gathers strength by the frequent blasts of joke and raillery. when their beloved is present it will gratify them most to pass a jest upon their passion, but to fall on any other subject will be counted an abuse. if they are remarkably loving to their own wives, or entertain a generous affection for a hopeful youth, then are they proud, then tickled when jeered for such a love. and therefore arcesilaus, when an amorous man in his school laid down this proposition, in my opinion one thing cannot touch another, replied, sir you touch this person, pointing to a lovely boy that sat near him. besides, the company must be considered; for what a man will only laugh at when mentioned amongst his friends and familiar acquaintance, he will not endure to be told of before his wife, father, or his tutor, unless perhaps it be something that will please those too; as for instance, if before a philosopher one should jeer a man for going barefoot or studying all night; or before his father, for carefulness and thrift; or in the presence of his wife, for being cold to his companions and doting upon her. thus tigranes, when cyrus asked him, what will your wife say when she hears that you are put to servile offices? replied, sir, she will not hear it, but be present herself and see it. again, those jokes are accounted less affronting which reflect somewhat also on the man that makes them; as when one poor man, base-born fellow, or lover jokes upon another. for whatever comes from one in the same circumstances looks more like a piece of mirth than a designed affront; but otherwise it must needs be irksome and distasteful. upon this account, when a slave whom the king had lately freed and enriched behaved himself very impertinently in the company of some philosophers, asking them, how it came to pass that the broth of beans whether white or black, was always green, aridices putting another question, why, let the whips be white or not, the wales and marks they made were still red, displeased him extremely, and made him rise from the table in a great rage and discontent. but amphias the tarsian, who was supposed to be sprung from a gardener, joking upon the governor's friend for his obscure and mean birth, and presently subjoining, but 'tis true, i sprung from the same seed, caused much mirth and laughter. and the harper very facetiously put a cheek to philip's ignorance and impertinence; for when philip pretended to correct him, he cried out, god forbid, sir, that ever you should be brought so low as to understand these things better than i. for by this seeming joke he instructed him without giving any offence. and therefore some of the comedians seem to lay aside their bitterness in every jest that may reflect upon themselves; as aristophanes, when he is merry upon a baldpate; and cratinus in his play "pytine" upon drunkenness and excess. besides, you must be very careful that the jest should seem to be extempore, taken from some present question or merry humor; not far-fetched, as if premeditate and designed. for as men are not much concerned at the anger and disputes among themselves at table while they are drinking, but if any stranger should come in and offer abuse, they would hate and look upon him as an enemy; so they will easily pardon and indulge a jest if undesignedly taken from any present circumstance; but if it is nothing to the matter in hand but fetched from another thing, it must look like a design and be resented as an affront. such was that of timagenes to the husband of a woman that often vomited,--"thou beginnest thy troubles by bringing home this vomiting woman," saying [greek omitted] (this vomiting woman), when the poet had written [greek omitted] (this muse); and also his question to athenodorus the philosopher,--is affection to our children natural? for when the raillery is not founded on some present circumstance, it is an argument of ill-nature and a mischievous temper; and such as these do often for a mere word, the lightest thing in the world (as plato says), suffer the heaviest punishment. but those that know how to time and apply a jest confirm plato's opinion, that to rally pleasantly and facetiously is the business of a scholar and a wit. question ii. why in autumn men have better stomachs than in other seasons of the year. glauclas, xenocles, lamprias, plutarch, and others. in eleusis, after the solemn celebration of the sacred mysteries, glaucias the orator entertained us at a feast; where after the rest had done, xenocles of delphi, as his humor is, began to be smart upon my brother lamprias for his good boeotian stomach. i in his defence opposing xenocles, who was an epicurean, said, pray, sir, do not all place the very substance of pleasure in privation of pain and suffering? but lamprias, who prefers the lyceum before the garden, ought by his practice to confirm aristotle's doctrine; for he affirms that every man hath a better stomach in the autumn than in other seasons of the year, and gives the reason, which i cannot remember at present. so much the better (says glaucias), for when supper is done, we will endeavor to discover it ourselves. that being over, glaucias and xenocles drew the autumnal fruit. one said that it scoured the body, and by this evacuation continually raised new appetites. xenocles affirmed, that ripe fruit had usually a pleasing, vellicating sapor, and thereby provoked the appetite better than sauces or sweetmeats; for sick men of a vitiated stomach usually recover it by eating fruit. but lamprias said, that our natural heat, the principal instrument of nutrition, in the midst of summer is scattered and becomes rare and weak, but when autumn comes it unites again and gathers strength, being shut in by the ambient cold and contraction of the pores, and i for my part said: in summer we are more thirsty and use more moisture than in other seasons; and therefore nature, observing the same method in all her operations, at this change of seasons employs the contrary and makes us hungry; and to maintain an equal temper in the body, she gives us dry food to countervail the moisture taken in the summer. yet none can deny but that the food itself is a partial cause; for not only new fruit, bread, or corn, but flesh of the same year, is better tasted than that of the former, more forcibly provokes the guests, and enticeth them to eat on. question iii. which was first the bird or the egg? plutarch, alexander, sylla, firmus, sossius senecio, and others. when upon a dream i had forborne eggs a long time, on purpose that in an egg (as in a heart) i might make experiment of a notable vision that often troubled me; some at sossius senecio's table suspected that i was tainted with orpheus's or pythagoras's opinions, and refused to eat an egg (as some do the heart and brain) imagining it to be the principle of generation. and alexander the epicurean ridiculingly repeated, to feed on beans and parents' heads is equal sin; as if the pythagoreans meant eggs by the word [greek omitted] (beans), deriving it from [greek omitted](to conceive), and thought it as unlawful to feed on eggs as on the animals that lay them. now to pretend a dream for the cause of my abstaining, to an epicurean, had been a defence more irrational than the cause itself; and therefore i suffered jocose alexander to enjoy his opinion, for he was a pleasant man and an excellent scholar. soon after he proposed that perplexed question, that plague of the inquisitive, which was first, the bird or the egg? and my friend sylla, saying that with this little question, as with an engine, we shook the great and weighty problem (whether the world had a beginning), declared his dislike of such questions. but alexander deriding the question as slight and impertinent, my relation firmus said:. well, sir, at present your atoms will do me some service; for if we suppose that small things must be the principles of greater, it is likely that the egg was before the bird; for an egg amongst sensible things is very simple, and the bird is more mixed, and contains a greater variety of parts. it is universally true that a principle is before that whose principle it is; now the seed is a principle, and the egg is somewhat more than the seed and less than the bird for as a disposition or a progress in goodness is something between a tractable mind and a habit of virtue, so an egg is as it were a progress of nature tending from the seed to a perfect animal. and as in an animal they say the veins and arteries are formed first, upon the same account the egg should be before the bird, as the thing containing before the thing contained. thus art first makes rude and ill-shapen figures and afterwards perfects everything with its proper form; and it was for this that the statuary polycletus said, then our work is most difficult, when the clay comes to be fashioned by the fingers. so it is probable that matter, not readily obeying the slow motions of contriving nature, at first frames rude and indefinite masses, as the egg, and of these moulded anew, and joined in better order, the animal afterward is formed. as the canker is first, and then growing dry and cleaving lets forth a winged animal, called psyche; so the egg is first as it were the subject-matter of the generation. for it is certain that, in every change, that out of which the thing changes must be before the thing changing. observe how worms and caterpillars are bred in trees from the moisture corrupted or concocted; now none can say but that the engendering moisture is naturally before all these. for (as plato says) matter is as a mother or nurse in respect of the bodies that are formed, and we call that matter out of which anything that is made. and with a smile continued he, i speak to those that are acquainted with the mystical and sacred discourse of orpheus, who not only affirms the egg to be before the bird, but makes it the first being in the whole world. the other parts, because deep mysteries, we shall now pass by; but let us look upon the various kinds of animals, and we shall find almost every one beginning from an egg,--fowls and fishes; land animals, as lizards; amphibious, as crocodiles; some with two legs, as a cock; some without any, as a snake; and some with many, as a locust. and therefore in the solemn feast of bacchus it is very well done to dedicate an egg, as the emblem of that which begets and contains everything in itself. to this discourse of firmus, senecio replied: sir, your last similitude contradicts your first, and you have unwittingly opened the world (instead of the door, as the proverb goes) against yourself. for the world was before all, being the most perfect; and it is rational that the perfect in nature should be before the imperfect, as the sound before the maimed, and the whole before the part. for it is absurd that there should be a part when there is nothing whose part it is; and therefore nobody says the seed's man or egg's hen, but the man's seed and hen's egg; because those being after these and formed in them, pay as it were a debt to nature, by bringing forth another. for they are not in themselves perfect, and therefore have a natural appetite to produce such a thing as that out of which they were first formed; and therefore seed is defined as a thing produced that is to be perfected by another production. now nothing can be perfected by or want that which as yet is not. everybody sees that eggs have the nature of a concretion or consistence in some animal or other, but want those organs, veins, and muscles which animals enjoy. and therefore no story delivers that ever any egg was formed immediately from earth; and the poets themselves tell us, that the egg out of which came the tyndaridae fell down from heaven. but even till this time the earth produceth some perfect and organized animals, as mice in egypt, and snakes, frogs, and grasshoppers almost everywhere, some external and invigorating principle assisting in the production. and in sicily, where in the servile war much blood was shed, and many carcasses rotted on the ground, whole swarms of locusts were produced, and spoiled the corn over the whole isle. such spring from and are nourished by the earth; and seed being formed in them, pleasure and titillation provoke them to mix, upon which some lay eggs, and some bring forth their young alive; and this evidently proves that animals first sprang from earth, and afterwards by copulation, after different ways, propagated their several kinds. in short, it is the same thing as if you said the womb was before the woman; for as the womb is to the egg, the egg is to the chick that is formed in it; so that he that inquires how birds should be when there were no eggs, might ask as well how men and women could be before any organs of generation were formed. parts generally have their subsistence together with the whole; particular powers follow particular members, and operations those powers, and effects those operations. now the effect of the generative power is the seed and egg; so that these must be after the formation of the whole. therefore consider, as there can be no digestion of food before the animal is formed, so there can be no seed nor egg; for those, it is likely, are made by some digestion and alterations; nor can it be that, before the animal is, the superfluous parts of the food of the animal should have a being. besides, though seed may perhaps pretend to be a principle, the egg cannot; for it doth not subsist first, nor hath it the nature of a whole, for it is imperfect. therefore we do not affirm that the animal is produced without a principle of its being; but we call the principle that power which changes, mixes, and tempers the matter, so that a living creature is regularly produced; but the egg is an after-production, as the blood or milk of an animal after the taking in and digestion of the food. for we never see an egg formed immediately of mud, for it is produced in the bodies of animals alone; but a thousand living creatures rise from the mud. what need of many instances? none ever found the spawn or egg of an eel; yet if you empty a pit and take out all the mud, as soon as other water settles in it, eels likewise are presently produced. now that must exist first which hath no need of any other thing that it may exist, and that after, which cannot be without the concurrence of another thing. and of this priority is our present discourse. besides, birds build nests before they lay their eggs; and women provide cradles, swaddling cloths and the like; yet who says that the nest is before the egg, or the swaddling cloths before the infant. for the earth (as plato says doth not imitate a woman, but a woman, and so likewise all other females, the earth.) moreover, it is probable that the first production out of the earth, which was then vigorous and perfect, was self-sufficient and entire, nor stood in need of those secundines, membranes, and vessels, which now nature forms to help the weakness and supply the defects of breeders. question iv. whether or no wrestling is the oldest exercise. sosicles, lysimachus, plutarch, philinus. sosicles of coronea having at the pythian games won the prize from all the poets, gave us an entertainment. and the time for running, cuffing, wrestling, and the like drawing on, there was a great talk of the wrestlers; for there were many and very famous men, who came to try their skill. lysimachus, one of the company, a procurator of the amphictyons, said he heard a grammarian lately affirm that wrestling was the most ancient exercise of all, as even the very name witnessed; for some modern things have the names of more ancient transferred to them; thus to tune a pipe is called fitting it, and playing on it is called striking; both these names being transferred to it from the harp. thus all places of exercise they call wrestling schools, wrestling being the oldest exercise, and therefore giving its name to the newer sorts. that, said i, is no good argument, for these palaestras or wrestling schools are called so from wrestling [greek omitted] not because it is the most ancient exercise, but because it is the only sort in which they use clay [greek omitted] dust, and oil; for in these there is neither racing nor cuffing, but wrestling only, and that feature of the pancratium in which they struggle on the ground,--for the pancratium comprises both wrestling and cuffing. besides, it is unlikely that wrestling, being more artificial and methodical than any other sort of exercise, should likewise be the most ancient; for mere want or necessity putting us upon new inventions, produces simple and inartificial things first, and such as have more of force in them than sleight and skill. this ended, sosicles said: you speak right, and i will confirm your discourse from the very name; for, in my opinion, [greek omitted] wrestling, is derived from [greek omitted] i.e. to throw down by sleight and artifice. and philinus said, it seems to me to be derived from [greek omitted] the palm of the hand, for wrestlers use that part most, as cuffers do the [greek omitted] fist; and hence both these sorts of exercises have their proper names, the one [greek omitted] the other [greek omitted]. besides, since the poets use the word [greek omitted] for [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], to sprinkle, and this action is most frequent amongst wrestlers, this exercise [greek omitted] may receive its name from that word. but more, consider that racers strive to be distant from one another; cuffers, by the judges of the field, are not permitted to take hold; and none but wrestlers come up breast to breast, and clasp one another round the waist, and most of their turnings, liftings, lockings bring them very close. it is probable that this exercise is called [greek omitted] from [greek omitted] or [greek omitted] to come up close or to be near together. question v. why, in reckoning up different kinds of exercises, homer puts cuffing first, wrestling next, and racing last. lysimachus, crates, timon, plutarch. this discourse being ended, and philinus hummed, lysimachus began again, what sort of exercise then shall we imagine to be first? racing, as at the olympian games? for here in the pythian, as every exercise comes on, all the contenders are brought in, the boy wrestlers first, then the men, and the same method is observed when the cuffers and fencers are to exercise; but there the boys perform all first, and then the men. but, says timon interposing, pray consider whether homer hath not determined this matter; for in his poems cuffing is always put in the first place, wrestling next, and racing last. at this menecrates the thessalian surprised cried out, good god, what things we skip over! but, pray sir, if you remember any of his verses to that purpose, do us the favor to repeat them. and timon replied: that the funeral solemnities of patroclus had this order i think every one hath heard; but the poet, all along observing the same order, brings in achilles speaking to nestor thus: with this reward i nestor freely grace, unfit for cuffing, wrestling, or the race. and in his answer he makes the old man impertinently brag:- i cuffing conquered oinop's famous son, with anceus wrestled, and the garland won, and outran iphiclus. ("iliad," xxiii. 620 and 634.) and again he brings in ulysses challenging the phaeacians to cuff, to wrestle, or to run the race; and alcinous answers: neither in cuffing nor in wrestling strong but swift of foot are we. ("odyssey" viii. 206 and 246.) so that he doth not carelessly confound the order, and, according to the present occasion, now place one sort first and now another; but he follows the then custom and practice and is constant in the same. and this was so as long as the ancient order was observed. to this discourse of my brother's i subjoined, that i liked what he said, but could not see the reason of this order. and some of the company, thinking it unlikely that cuffing or wrestling should be a more ancient exercise than racing, they desired me to search farther into the matter; and thus i spake upon the sudden. all these exercises seem to me to be representations of feats of arms and training therein; for after all, a man armed at all points is brought in to show that that is the end at which all these exercises and trainings end. and the privilege granted to the conquerors, viz., as they rode into the city, to throw down some part of the wall--hath this meaning; that walls are but a small advantage to that city which hath men able to fight and overcome. in sparta those that were victors in any of the crowned games had an honorable place in the army and were to fight near the king's person. of all other creatures a horse only can have a part in these games and win the crown, for that alone is designed by nature to be trained to war, and to prove assisting in a battle. if these things seem probable, let us consider farther, that it is the first work of a fighter to strike his enemy and ward the other's blows; the second, when they come up close and lay hold of one another, to trip and overturn him; and in this, they say, our countrymen being better wrestlers very much distressed the spartans at the battle of leuctra. and aeschylus describes a warrior thus,- one stout, and skilled to wrestle in his arms; and sophocles somewhere says of the trojans,- they rid the horse, they could the bow command and wrestle with a rattling shield in hand. but it is the third and last, either when conquered to fly, when conquerors to pursue. and therefore it is likely that cuffing is set first, wrestling next, and racing last; for the first bears the resemblance of charging or warding the blows; the second, of close fighting and repelling; the third, of flying a victorious, or pursuing a routed enemy. question vi. why fir-trees, pine-trees, and the like will not be grafted upon. soclarus, crato, philo. soclarus entertaining us in his gardens, round which the river cephissus runs, showed us several trees strangely varied by the different grafts upon their stocks. we saw an olive upon a juniper, a peach upon a myrtle, pear grafts on an oak, apple upon a plane, a mulberry on a fig and a great many such like, which were grown strong enough to bear. some joked on soclarus as nourishing stranger kinds of things than the poets' sphinxes or chimaeras, but crato set us to inquire why those stocks only that are of an oily nature will not admit such mixtures for we never see a pine, fir, or cypress bear a graft of another kind. and philo subjoined: there is, crato, a reason for this amongst the philosophers, which the gardeners confirm and strengthen. for they say, oil is very hurtful to all plants, and any plant dipped in it like a bee, will soon die. now these trees are of a fat and oily nature, insomuch that they weep pitch and rosin; and, if you cut then gore (as it were) appears presently in the wound. besides, a torch made of them sends forth an oily smoke, and the brightness of the flame shows it to be fat; and upon this account these trees are as great enemies to all other kinds of grafts as oil itself. to this crato added, that the bark was a partial cause; for that, being rare and dry, could not afford either convenient room or sufficient nourishment to the grafts; but when the bark is moist, it quickly joins with those grafts that are let into the body of the tree. then soclarus added: this too ought to be considered, that that which receives a graft of another kind ought to be easy to be changed, that the graft may prevail, and make the sap in the stock fit and natural to itself. thus we break up the ground and soften it, that being thus broken it may more easily be wrought upon, and applied to what we plant in it; for things that are hard and rigid cannot be so quickly wrought upon nor so easily changed. now those trees, being of very light wood, do not mix well with the grafts, because they are very hard either to be changed or overcome. but more, it is manifest that the stock which receives the graft should be instead of a soil to it, and a soil should have a breeding faculty; and therefore we choose the most fruitful stocks to graft on, as women that are full of milk, when we would put out a child to nurse. but everybody knows that the fir, cypress, and the like are no great bearers. for as men very fat have few children (for, the whole nourishment being employed in the body, there remains no overplus to make seed), so these trees, spending all their sap in their own stock, flourish indeed and grow great; but as for fruit, some bear none at all, some very little, and that too slowly ripens; therefore it is no wonder that they will not nourish another's fruit, when they are so very sparing to their own. question vii. about the fish called remora or echeneis. chaeremonianus, plutarch, and others. chaeremonianus the trallian, when we were at a very noble fish dinner, pointing to a little, long, sharp-headed fish, said the echeneis (ship-stopper) was like that, for he had often seen it as he sailed in the sicilian sea, and wondered at its strange force; for it stopped the ship when under full sail, till one of the seamen perceived it sticking to the outside of the ship, and took it off. some laughed at chaeremonianus for believing such an incredible and unlikely story. others on this occasion talked very much of antipathies, and produced a thousand instances of such strange effects; for example, the sight of a ram quiets an enraged elephant; a viper lies stock-still, if touched with a beechen leaf; a wild bull grows tame, if bound with the twigs of a fig-tree; and amber draws all light things to it, except basil and such as are dipped in oil; and a loadstone will not draw a piece of iron that is rubbed with onion. now all these, as to matter of fact, are very evident; but it is hard, if not altogether impossible, to find the cause. then said i: this is a mere shift and avoiding of the question, rather than a declaration of the cause; but if we please to consider, we shall find a great many accidents that are only consequents of the effect to be unjustly esteemed the causes of it; as for instance, if we should fancy that by the blossoming of the chaste-tree the fruit of the vine is ripened; because this is a common saying,- the chaste-tree blossoms, and the grapes grow ripe; or that the little protuberances in the candle-snuff thicken the air and make it cloudy; or the hookedness of the nails is the cause and not an accident consequential to an ulcer. therefore as those things mentioned are but consequents to the effect, though proceeding from one and the same cause, so one and the same cause stops the ship, and joins the echeneis to it; for the ship continuing dry, not yet made heavy by the moisture soaking into the wood, it is probable that it lightly glides, and as long as it is clean, easily cuts the waves; but when it is thoroughly soaked, when weeds, ooze, and filth stick upon its sides, the stroke of the ship is more obtuse and weak; and the water, coming upon this clammy matter, doth not so easily part from it; and this is the reason why they usually calk their ships. now it is likely that the echeneis in this case, sticking upon the clammy matter, is not thought an accidental consequent to this cause, but the very cause itself. question viii. why they say those horses called [greek omitted] are very mettlesome. plutarch, his father, and others. some say the horses called [greek omitted] received that name from the fashion of their bridles (called [greek omitted]), that had prickles like the teeth on the wolf's jaw; for being fiery and hard-mouthed, the riders used such to tame them. but my father, who seldom speaks but on good reason, and breeds excellent horses, said, those that were set upon by wolves when colts, if they escaped, grew swift and mettlesome, and were called [greek omitted] many agreeing to what he said, it began to be inquired why such an accident as that should make them more mettlesome and fierce; and many of the company thought that, from such an assault, fear and not courage was produced; and that thence growing fearful and apt to start at everything, their motions became more quick and vigorous, as they are in wild beasts when entangled in a net. but, said i, it ought to be considered whether the contrary be not more probable; for the colts do not become more swift by escaping the assault of a wild beast, but they had never escaped unless they had been swift and mettlesome before. as ulysses was not made wise by escaping from the cyclops, but by being wise before he escaped. question ix. why the flesh of sheep bitten by wolves is sweeter than that of others, and the wool more apt to breed lice. patroclias, the same. after the former discourse, mention was made of those sheep that wolves have bitten; for it is commonly said of them, that their flesh is very sweet, and their wool breeds lice. my relative patroclias seemed to be pretty happy in his reasoning upon the first part, saying, that the beast by biting it did mollify the flesh; for wolves' spirits are so hot and fiery, that they soften and digest the hardest bones and for the same reason things bitten by wolves rot sooner than others. but concerning the wool we could not agree, being not fully resolved whether it breeds those lice, or only opens a passage for them, separating the flesh by its fretting roughness or proper warmth; and appeared that this power proceeded from the bite of wolf, which alters even the very hair of the creature that it kills. and this some particular instances seem to confirm; for we know some huntsmen and cooks will kill a beast with one stroke, so that it never breathes after, whilst others repeat their blows, and scarce do it with a great deal of trouble. but (what is more strange) some, as they kill it, infuse such a quality that the flesh rots presently and cannot be kept sweet above a day; yet others that despatch it as soon find no such alteration, but the flesh will keep sweet a long while. and that by the manner of killing a great alteration is made even in the skins, nails, and hair of a beast, homer seems to witness, when, speaking of a good hide, he says,- an ox's hide that fell by violent blows; ("iliad," iii. 375.) for not those that fell by a disease or old age, but by a violent death, leave us tough and strong hides; but after they are bitten by wild beasts, their hoofs grow black, their hair falls, their skins putrefy and are good for nothing. question x. whether the ancients, by providing every one his mess, did best or we, who set many to the same dish. plutarch, hagias. when i was chief magistrate, most of the suppers consisted of distinct messes, where every particular guest had his portion of the sacrifice allowed him. some were wonderfully well pleased with this order; others blamed it as unsociable and ungenteel, and were of the opinion that, as soon as i was out of my office, the manner of entertainments ought to be reformed; for, says hagias, we invite one another not barely to eat and drink, but to eat and drink together. now this division into messes takes away all society, makes many suppers, and many eaters, but no one sups with another; but every man takes his pound of beef, as from the meat shop, sets it before himself, and falls on. and is it not the same thing to provide a different cup and different table for every guest (as the demophontidae treated orestes), as now to set each man his loaf of bread and mess of meat, and feed him, as it were, out of his own proper manger? only, it is true, we are not (as those that treated orestes were) obliged to be silent and not discourse. besides, that all the guests should have a share in everything, we may draw an argument from hence;--the same discourse is common to us all, the same songstress sings, and the same musician plays to all. so, when the same cup is set in the midst, not appropriated to any, it is a large spring of good fellowship, and each man may take as much as his appetite requires; not like this most unjust distribution of bread and meat, which prides itself forsooth in being equal to all, though unequal, stomachs; for the same share to a man of a small appetite is too much; to one of a greater, too little. and, sir, as he that administers the very same dose of physic to all sorts of patients must be very ridiculous; so likewise must that entertainer who, inviting a great many guests that can neither eat nor drink alike, sets before every one an equal mess, and measures what is just and fit by an arithmetical not geometrical proportion. when we go to a shop to buy, we all use, it is true, one and the same public measure; but to an entertainment each man brings his own belly, which is satisfied with a portion, not because it is equal to that which others have, but because it is sufficient for itself. those entertainments where every one had his single mess homer mentions amongst soldiers and in the camp, which we ought not to bring into fashion amongst us; but rather imitate the good friendship of the ancients, who, to show what reverence they had for all kinds of societies, not only respected those that lived with them or under the same roof, but also those that drank out of the same cup or ate out of the same dish. let us never mind homer's entertainments; they were good for nothing but to starve a man, and the makers of them were kings more stingy and observant than the italian cooks; insomuch that in the midst of a battle, whilst they were at handy-blows with their enemies, they could exactly reckon up how many glasses each man drank at his table. but those that pindar describes are much better,- where heroes mixed sat round the noble board, because they maintained society and good fellowship; for the latter truly mixed and joined friends, but our modern system divides and asperses them as persons who, though seemingly very good friends, cannot so much as eat with one another out of the same dish. to this polite discourse of hagias they urged me to reply. and i said: hagias, it is true, hath reason to be troubled at this unusual disappointment, because having so great a belly (for he was an excellent trencherman) he had no larger mess than others; for in a fish eaten together democritus says, there are no bones. but that very thing is likely to increase our share beyond our own proper allowance. for it is equality, as the old woman in euripides hath it, that fastens towns to towns, and friends to friends; (euripides, "phoenissae," 536.) and entertainments chiefly stand in need of this. the necessity is from nature as well as custom, and is not lately introduced or founded only on opinion. for when the same dish lies in common before all, the man that is slow and eats little must be offended at the other that is too quick for him, as a slow ship at the swift sailor. besides, snatching, contention, shoving, and the like, are not, in my mind, neighborly beginnings of mirth and jollity; but they are absurd, doggish, and often end in anger or reproaches, not only against one another, but also against the entertainer himself or the carvers of the feast. but as long as moera and lachesis (division and distribution) maintained equality in feasts, nothing uncivil or disorderly was seen, and they called the feasts [greek omitted], distributions, the entertained [greek omitted], and the carvers [greek omitted], distributers, from dividing and distributing to every man his proper mess. the lacedaemonians had officers called distributers of the flesh, no mean men, but the chief of the city; for lysander himself by king agesilaus was constituted one of these in asia. but when luxury crept into our feasts, distributing was thrown out; for i suppose they had not leisure to divide these numerous tarts, cheese-cakes, pies, and other delicate varieties; but, surprised with the pleasantness of the taste and tired with the variety, they left off cutting it into portions, and left all in common. and this is confirmed from the present practice; for in our religious or public feasts, where the food is simple and inartificial, each man hath his mess assigned him; so that he that endeavors to retrieve the ancient custom will likewise recover thrift and almost lost frugality again. but, you object, where only property is, community is lost. true indeed, where equality is not; for not the possession of what is proper and our own, but the taking away of another's and coveting that which is common, is the cause of all injury and contention; and the laws, restraining and confining these within the proper bounds, receive their name from their office, being a power distributing equally to every one in order to the common good. thus every one is not to be honored by the entertainer with the garland or the chiefest place; but if any one brings with him his sweetheart or a singing girl, they must be common to him and his friends, that all possessions may be brought together, as anaxagoras would have it. now if propriety in these things doth not in the least hinder but that things of greater moment, and the only considerable, as discourse and civility, may be still common, let us leave off abasing distributions or the lot, the son of fortune (as euripides hath it), which hath no respect either to riches or honor, but in its inconsiderate wheel now and then raiseth up the humble and the poor, and makes him master of himself, and, by accustoming the great and rich to endure and not be offended at equality, pleasingly instructs. book iii simonides the poet, my sossius senecio, seeing one of the company sit silent and discourse nobody, said: sir, if you are fool, it is wisely done; if a wise man, very foolishly. it is good to conceal a man's folly (but as heraclitus says) it is very hard to do it over a glass of wine,- which doth the gravest men to mirth advance, and let them loose to sing, to laugh, and dance, and speak what had been better unsaid. ("odyssey," xiv. 464.) in which lines the poet in my mind shows the difference between being a little heated and downright drunk; for to sing, laugh, and dance may agree very well with those that have gone no farther than the merry cup; but to prattle, and speak what had been better left unsaid, argues a man to be quite gone. and therefore plato thinks that wine is the must ingenious discoverer of men's humors; and homer, when he says,- at feasts they had not known each other's minds, (ibid. xxi. 35.) evidently shows that he knew wine was powerful to open men's thoughts, and was full of new discoveries. it is true from the bare eating and drinking, if they say nothing we can give no guess at the tempers of the men; but because drinking leads them into discourse, and discourse lays a great many things open and naked which were secret and hid before, therefore to sport a glass of wine together lets us into one another's humors. and therefore a man may reasonably fall foul on aesop: why sir, would you have a window in every man's breast, through which we may look in upon his thoughts? wine opens and exposes all, it will not suffer us to be silent, but takes off all mask and visor, and makes us regardless of the severe precepts of decency and custom. thus aesop or plato, or any other that designs to look into a man, may have his desires satisfied by the assistance of a bottle; but those that are not solicitous to pump one another, but to be sociable and pleasant, discourse of such matters and handle such questions as make no discovery of the bad parts of the soul, but such as comfort the good, and, by the help of neat and polite learning, lead the intelligent part into an agreeable pasture and garden of delight this made me collect and dedicate the first to you this third dedication of table discourses, the first of which is about chaplets made of flowers. question i. whether it is fitting to wear chaplets of flowers at table. erato, ammonius, trypho, plutarch, and others. at athens erato the musician keeping a solemn feast to the muses, and inviting a great many to the treat, the company was full of talk, and the subject of the discourse garlands. for after supper many of all sorts of flowers being presented to the guests, ammonius began to jeer me for choosing a rose chaplet before a laurel, saying that those made of flowers were effeminate, and fitted toyish girls and women more than grave philosophers and men of music. and i admire that our friend erato, that abominates all flourishing in songs, and blames good agatho, who first in his tragedy of the mysians ventured to introduce the chromatic airs, should himself fill his entertainment with such various and such florid colors; yet, while he shuts out all the soft delights that through the ears can enter to the soul, he should introduce others through the eyes and through the nose, and make these garlands, instead of signs of piety, to be instruments of pleasure. for it must be confessed that this ointment gives a better smell than those trifling flowers, which wither even in the hands of those that wreathe them. besides, all pleasure must be banished the company of philosophers, unless it is of some use or desired by natural appetite; for as those that are carried to a banquet by some of their invited friends (as, for instance, socrates carried aristodemus to agatho's table) are as civilly entertained as the bidden guests, but he that goes on his own account is shut out of doors; thus the pleasures of eating and drinking, being invited by natural appetite, should have admission; but all the others which come on no account and have only luxury to introduce them, ought in reason to be denied. at this some young men, not thoroughly acquainted with ammonius's humor, being abashed, privately tore their chaplets; but i, perceiving that ammonius proposed this only for discourse and disputation's sake, applying myself to trypho the physician, said: sir, you must put off that sparkling rosy chaplet as well as we, or declare, as i have often heard you, what excellent preservatives these flowery garlands are against the strength of liquor. but here erato putting in said: what, is it decreed that no pleasure must be admitted without profit? and must we be angry with our delight, unless hired to endure it? perhaps we may have reason to be ashamed of ointments and purple vests, because so costly and expensive, and to look upon them as (in the barbarian's phrase) treacherous garments and deceitful odors; but these natural smells and colors are pure and simple as fruits themselves, and without expense or the curiosity of art. and i appeal to any one, whether it is not absurd to receive the pleasant savors nature gives us, and enjoy and reject those smells and colors that the seasons afford us, because forsooth they blossom with delight, if they have no other external profit or advantage. besides, we have an axiom against you, for if (as you affirm) nature makes nothing in vain, those things that have no other use were designed on purpose to please and to delight. besides, observe that to thriving trees nature hath given leaves, both for the preservation of the fruit and of the stock itself; for those sometimes warming, sometimes cooling it, the seasons creep on by degrees, and do not assault it with all their violence at once. but now the flower, whilst it is on the plant, is of no profit at all, unless we use it to delight our nose with the admirable smell, and to please our eyes when it opens that inimitable variety of colors. and therefore, when the leaves are plucked off, the plants as it were suffer injury and grief. there is a kind of an ulcer raised, and an unbecoming nakedness attends them; and we must not only (as empedocles says) by all means spare the leaves that grace the palm, but likewise of all other trees, and not injuriously against nature robbing them of their leaves, bring deformity on them to adorn ourselves. but to pluck the flowers doth no injury at all. it is like gathering of grapes at the time of vintage; unless plucked when ripe, they wither of themselves and fall. and therefore, like the barbarians who clothe themselves with the skins more commonly than with the wool of sheep, those that wreathe leaves rather than flowers into garlands seem to me to use the plants neither according to the dictates of reason nor the design of nature. and thus much i say in defence of those who sell chaplets of flowers; for i am not grammarian enough to remember those poems which tell us that the old conquerors in the sacred games were crowned with flowers. yet, now i think of it, there is a story of a rosy crown that belongs to the muses; sappho mentions it in a copy of verses to a woman unlearned and unacquainted with the muses:- thou shalt unregarded lie cause ne'er acquainted with the muses' rose. (from sappho, frag. 68.) but if trypho can produce anything to our advantage from physic, pray let us have it. then trypho taking the discourse said: the ancients were very curious and well acquainted with all these things, because plants were the chief ingredients of their physic. and of this some signs remain till now; for the tyrians offer to agenor, and the magnesians to chiron, the first supposed practitioners of physic, as the first fruits, the roots of those plants which have been successful on a patient. and bacchus was not only counted a physician for finding wine, the most pleasing and most potent remedy, but for bringing ivy, the greatest opposite imaginable to wine, into reputation, and for teaching his drunken followers to wear garlands of it, that by that means they might be secured against the violence of a debauch, the heat of the liquor being remitted by the coldness of the ivy. besides, the names of several plants sufficiently evidence the ancients curiosity in this matter; for they named the walnut-tree [greek omitted], because it sends forth a heavy and [greek omitted] drowsy spirit, which affects their heads who sleep beneath it; and the daffodil, [greek omitted], because it benumbs the nerves and causes a stupid narcotic heaviness in the limbs, and therefore sophocles calls it the ancient garland flower of the great (that is, the earthy) gods. and some say rue was called [greek omitted] from its astringent quality; for, by its dryness preceding from its heat, it fixes [greek omitted] or dries the seed, and is very hurtful to great-bellied women. but those that imagine the herb amethyst [greek omitted], and the precious stone of the same name, are called so because powerful against the force of wine are much mistaken; for both receive there names from their color; for its leaf is not of the color of strong wine, but resembles that of weak diluted liquor. and indeed i could mention a great many which have their names from their proper virtues. but the care and the experience of the ancients sufficiently appears in those of which they made their garlands when they designed to be merry and frolic over a glass of wine; for wine, especially when it seizes on the head, and weakens the body just at the very spring and origin of the sense, disturbs the whole man. now the effluvia of flowers are an admirable preservative against this, they secure the brain, as it were a citadel, against the effects of drunkenness; for those that are hot upon the pores and give the fumes free passage to exhale, and those moderately cold repel and keep down the ascending vapors. such are the violet and rose; for the odors of both these are prevalent against any ache and heaviness in the head. the flowers of the privet and crocus bring those that have drunk freely into a gentle sleep; for they send forth a smooth and gentle effluvia, which softly takes off all asperities that arise in the body of the drunken; and so all things being quiet and composed, the violence on the noxious humor is abated and thrown off. the smells of some flowers being received into the brain cleanse the organs and instruments of sense, and gently by their heat, without any violence or force, dissolve the humors, and warm and cherish the brain itself, which is naturally cold. and upon this account, they call those little posies they hang about their necks [greek omitted], and anointed their breasts with the oils that were squeezed from them; and of this alcaeus is a witness, when he bids his friends, pour ointments o'er his laboring temples, pressed with various cares, and o'er his aged breast. for the warm odors shoot upward into the very brain, being drawn up by the nostrils. for they did not call those garlands hung about the neck [greek omitted] because they thought the heart was the seat and citadel of the mind [greek omitted], for on that account they should rather have called them [greek omitted], but, as i said before, from their vapor and exhalation. besides, it is no strange thing that these smells of garlands should be of so considerable a virtue; for some tell us that the shadow of the yew, especially when it blossoms, kills those that sleep under it; and a subtle spirit ariseth from pressed poppy, which suddenly overcomes the unwary squeezers. and there is an herb called alyssus, which to some that take it in their hands, to others that do but look on it, is found a present remedy against the hiccough; and some affirm that planted near the stalls it preserves sheep and goats from the rot and mange. and the rose is called [greek omitted], probably because it sends forth a stream [greek omitted] of odors; and for that reason it withers presently. it is a cooler, yet fiery to look upon; and no wonder, for upon the surface a subtile heat, being driven out by the inward heat, looks vivid and appears. question ii. whether ivy is of a hot or cold nature. ammonius, trypho, erato. upon this discourse, when we all hummed trypho, ammonius with a smile said: it is not decent by any contradiction to pull in pieces, like a chaplet, this various and florid discourse of trypho's. yet methinks the ivy is a little oddly interwoven, and unjustly said by its cold powers to temper the heat of strong wine; for it is rather fiery and hot, and its berries steeped in wine make the liquor more apt to inebriate and inflame. and from this cause, as in sticks warped by the fire, proceeds the crookedness of the boughs. and snow, that for many days will lie on other trees, presently melts from the branches of the ivy, and wastes all around, as far as the warmth reaches. but the greatest evidence is this. theophrastus tells us, that when alexander commanded harpalus to plant some grecian trees in the babylonian gardens, and--because the climate is very hot and the sun violent--such as were leafy, thick, and fit to make a shade, the ivy only would not grow; though all art and diligence possible were used, it withered and died. for being hot itself, it could not agree with the fiery nature of the soil; for excess in similar qualities is destructive, and therefore we see everything as it were affects its contrary; a cold plant flourishes in a hot ground, and a hot plant is delighted with a cold. upon which account it is that bleak mountains, exposed to cold winds and snow, bear firs, pines, and the like, full of pitch, fiery, and excellent to make a torch. but besides, trypho, trees of a cold nature, their little feeble heat not being able to diffuse itself but retiring to the heart, shed their leaves; but their natural oiliness and warmth preserve the laurel, olive, and cypress always green; and the like too in the ivy may be observed. and therefore it is not likely our dear friend bacchus, who called wine [greek omitted] intoxicating and himself [greek omitted], should bring ivy into reputation for being a preservative against drunkenness and an enemy to wine. but in my opinion, as lovers of wine, when they have not any juice of the grape ready, drink ale, mead, cider, or the like; thus he that in winter would have a vine-garland on his head, and finding the vine naked and without leaves, used the ivy that is like it; for its boughs are twisted and irregular, its leaves moist and disorderly confused, but chiefly the berries, like ripening clusters, make an exact representation of the vine. but grant the ivy to be a preservative against drunkenness,--that to please you, trypho, we may name bachus a physician,--still i affirm that power to proceed from its heat, which either opens the pores or helps to digest the wine. upon this trypho sat silent, studying for an answer. erato addressing himself to us youths, said: trypho wants your assistance; help him in this dispute about the garlands, or be content to sit without any. ammonius too bade us not be afraid, for he would not reply to any of our discourses; and trypho likewise urging me to propose something, i said: to demonstrate that the ivy is cold is not so proper a task for me as trypho, for he often useth coolers and binders; but that proposition, that wine in which ivy berries have been is more inebriating, is not true; for that disturbance which it raiseth in those that drink it is not so properly called drunkenness as alienation of mind or madness, such as hyoscyamus and a thousand other things that set men beside themselves usually produce. the crookedness of the bough is no argument at all, for such violent and unnatural effects cannot be supposed to proceed from any natural quality or power. now sticks are bent by the fire, because that draws the moisture, and so the crookedness is a violent distortion; but the natural heat nourishes and preserves the body. consider, therefore, whether it is not the weakness and coldness of the body that makes it wind, bend, and creep upon the ground; for those qualities check its rise, and depress it in its ascent, and render it like a weak traveller, that often sits down and then goes on again. and therefore the ivy requires something to twine about, and needs a prop; for it is not able to sustain and direct its own branches, because it wants heat, which naturally tends upward. the snow is melted by the wetness of the leaf, for water destroys it easily, passing through the thin contexture, it being nothing but a congeries of small bubbles; and therefore in very cold but moist places the snow melts as soon as in hot. that it is continually green doth not proceed from its heat, for to shed its leaves doth not argue the coldness of a tree. thus the myrtle and well fern, though not hot, but confessedly cold, are green all the year. some imagine this comes from the equal and duly proportioned mixture of the qualities in the leaf, to which empedocles hath added a certain aptness of pores, through which the nourishing juice is orderly transmitted, so that there is still supply sufficient. but now it is otherwise in trees whose leaves fall, by reason of the wideness of their higher and narrowness of their lower pores; for the latter do not send juice enough, nor do the former keep it, but as soon as a small stock is received pour it out. this may be illustrated from the usual watering of our gardens; for when the distribution is unequal, the plants that are always watered have nourishment enough, seldom wither, and look always green. but you further argue, that being planted in babylon it would not grow. it was well done of the plant, methinks, being a particular friend and familiar of the boeotian god, to scorn to live amongst the barbarians, or imitate alexander in following the manners of those nations; but it was not its heat but cold that was the cause of this aversion, for that could not agree with the contrary quality. for one similar quality doth not destroy but cherish another. thus dry ground bears thyme, though it is naturally hot. now at babylon they say the air is so suffocating, so intolerably hot, that many of the more prosperous sleep upon skins full of water, that they may lie cool. question iii. why women are hardly, old men easily, foxed. florus, sylla. florus thought it strange that aristotle in his discourse of drunkenness, affirming that old men are easily, women hardly, overtaken, did not assign the cause, since he seldom failed on such occasions. therefore he proposed it to us (we were a great many acquaintance met at supper) as a fit subject for our inquiry. sylla began: one part will conduce to the discovery of the other; and if we rightly hit the cause in relation to the women, the difficulty, as it concerns the old men, will be easily despatched; for their two natures are quite contrary. moistness, smoothness, and softness belong to the one; and dryness, roughness, and hardness are the accidents of the other. as for women, i think the principal cause is the moistness of their temper; this produceth a softness in the flesh, a shining smoothness, and their usual purgations. now when wine is mixed with a great deal of weak liquor, it is overpowered by that, loses its strength, and becomes flat and waterish. some reason likewise may be drawn from aristotle himself; for he affirms that those that drink fast, and take a large draught without drawing breath, are seldom overtaken, because the wine doth not stay long in their bodies, but having acquired an impetus by this greedy drinking, suddenly runs through; and women are generally observed to drink after that manner. besides, it is probable that their bodies, by reason of the continual deduction of the moisture in order to their usual purgations, are very porous, and divided as it were into many little pipes and conduits; into which when the wine falls, it is quickly conveyed away, and doth not lie and fret the principal parts, from whose disturbance drunkenness proceeds. but that old men want the natural moisture, even the name [greek omitted], in my opinion, intimates; for that name was given them not as stooping to the earth [greek omitted] but as being in the habit of their body [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], earthlike and earthy. besides, the stiffness and roughness prove the dryness of their nature. therefore it is probable that, when they drink, their body, being grown spongy by the dryness of its nature, soaks up the wine, and that lying in the vessels it affects the senses and prevents the natural motions. for as floods of water glide over the close grounds, nor make them slabby, but quickly sink into the open and chapped fields; thus wine, being sucked in by the dry parts, lies and works in the bodies of old men. but besides, it is easy to observe, that age of itself hath all the symptoms of drunkenness. these symptoms everybody knows; viz., shaking of the joints, faltering of the tongue, babbling, passion, forgetfulness, and distraction of the mind; many of which being incident to old men, even whilst they are well and in perfect health, are heightened by any little irregularity and accidental debauch. so that drunkenness doth not beget in old men any new and proper symptoms, but only intend and increase the common ones. and an evident sign of this is, that nothing is so like an old man as a young man drunk. question iv. whether the temper of women is colder or hotter than that of men. apollonides, athryilatus. thus sylla said, and apollonides the marshal subjoined: sir, what you discoursed of old men i willingly admit; but in my opinion you have omitted a considerable reason in relation to the women, viz., the coldness of their temper, which quencheth the heat of the strongest wine, and makes it lose all its destructive force and fire. this reflection seeming reasonable, athryilatus the thasian, a physician, kept us from a hasty conclusion in this matter, by saying that some supposed the female sex was not cold, but hotter than the male; and others thought wine rather cold than hot. when florus seemed surprised at this discourse, athryilatus continued: sir, what i mention about wine i shall leave to this man to make out (pointing to me, for a few days before we had handled the same matter). but that women are of a hot constitution, some suppose, may be proved, first, from their smoothness, for their heat wastes all the superfluous nourishment which breeds hair; secondly from their abundance of blood, which seems to be the fountain and source of all the heat that is in the body;--now this abounds so much in females, that they would be all on fire, unless relieved by frequent and sudden evacuations. thirdly, from a usual practice of the sextons in burning the bodies of the dead, it is evident that females are hotter than males; for the bedsmen are wont to put one female body with ten males upon the same pile, for that contains some inflammable and oily parts, and serves for fuel to the rest. besides, if that that is soonest fit for generation is hottest, and a maid begins to be furious sooner than a boy, this is a strong proof of the hotness of the female sex. but a more convincing proof follows: women endure cold better than men, they are not so sensible of the sharpness of the weather, and are contented with a few clothes. and florus replied: methinks, sir, from the same topics i could draw conclusions against your assertion. for, first, they endure cold better, because one similar quality doth not so readily act upon another; and then again, their seed is not active in generation, but passive matter and nourishment to that which the male injects. but more, women grow effete sooner than men; that they burn better than the males proceeds from their fat, which is the coldest part of the body; and young men, or such as use exercise, have but little fat. their monthly purgations do not prove the abundance, but the corruption and badness, of their blood; for being the superfluous and undigested part, and having no convenient vessel in the body it flows out, and appears languid and feculent, by reason of the weakness of its heat. and the shivering that seizes them at the time of their purgations sufficiently proves that which flows from them is cold and undigested. and who will believe their smoothness to be an effect of heat rather than cold, when everybody knows that the hottest parts of a body are the most hairy? for all such excrements are thrust out by the heat, which opens and makes passages through the skin; but smoothness is a consequent of that closeness of the superficies which proceeds from condensing cold. and that the flesh of women is closer than that of men, you may be informed by those that lie with women that have anointed themselves with oil or other perfumes; for though they do not touch the women, yet they find themselves perfumed, their bodies by reason of their heat and rarity drawing the odor to them. but i think we have disputed plausibly and sufficiently of this matter.... question v. whether wine is potentially cold. athryilatus, plutarch. but now i would fain know upon what account you can imagine that wine is cold. then, said i, do you believe this to be my opinion? yes, said he, whose else? and i replied: i remember a good while ago i met with a discourse of aristotle's upon this very question. and epicurus, in his banquet, hath a long discourse, the sum of which is that wine of itself is not hot, but that it contains some atoms that cause heat, and others that cause cold; now, when it is taken into the body, it loses one sort of particles and takes the other out of the body itself, as it agrees with one's nature and constitution; so that some when they are drunk are very hot, and others very cold. this way of talking, said florus, leads us by protagoras directly to pyrrho; for it is evident that, suppose we were to discourse of oil, milk, honey, or the like, we shall avoid all inquiry into their particular natures by saying that things are so and so by their mutual mixture with one another. but how do you prove that wine is cold? and i, being forced to speak extempore, replied: by two arguments. the first i draw from the practice of physicians, for when their patients' stomachs grow very weak, they prescribe no hot things, and yet give them wine as an excellent remedy. besides, they stop looseness and immoderate sweating by wine; and this shows that they think it more binding and constipating than snow itself. now if it were potentially hot, i should think it as wise a thing to apply fire to snow as wine to the stomach. again, most teach that sleep proceeds from the coolness of the parts; and most of the narcotic medicines, as mandrake and opium, are coolers. those indeed work violently, and forcibly condense, but wine cools by degrees; it gently stops the motion, according as it hath more or less of such narcotic qualities. besides, heat has a generative power; for owing to heat the fluid flows easily and the vital spirit gets vigor and a stimulating force. now the great drinkers are very dull, inactive fellows, no women's men at all; they eject nothing strong, vigorous, and fit for generation, but are weak and unperforming, by reason of the bad digestion and coldness of their seed. and it is farther observable that the effects of cold and drunkenness upon men's bodies are the same,--trembling, heaviness, paleness, shivering, faltering of tongue, numbness, and cramps. in many, a debauch ends in a dead palsy, when the wine stupefies and extinguisheth all the heat. and the physicians use this method in curing the qualms and diseases gotten by debauch; at night they cover them well and keep them warm; and at day they annoint and bathe, and give them such food as shall not disturb, but by degrees recover the heat which the wine hath scattered and driven out of the body. thus, i added, in these appearances we trace obscure qualities and powers; but as for drunkenness, it is easily known what it is. for, in my opinion, as i hinted before, those that are drunk are very much like old men; and therefore great drinkers grow old soonest, and they are commonly bald and gray before their time; and all these accidents certainly proceed from want of heat. but mere vinegar is of a vinous nature, and nothing quenches fire so soon as that; its extreme coldness overcomes and kills the flame presently. and of all fruits physicians use the vinous as the greatest coolers, as pomegranates and apples. besides, do they not make wine by mixing honey with rain-water or snow; for the cold, because those two qualities are near akin, if it prevails, changes the luscious into a poignant taste? and did not the ancients of all the creeping beasts consecrate the snake to bacchus, and of all the plants the ivy, because they were of a cold and frozen nature? now, lest any one should think this is a proof of its heat, that if a man takes juice of hemlock, a large dose of wine cures him, i shall, on the contrary affirm that wine and hemlock juice mixed is an incurable poison, and kills him that drinks it presently. so that we can no more conclude it to be hot because it resists, than to be cold because it assists, the poison. for cold is the only quality by which hemlock juice works and kills. question vi. which is the fittest time for a man to know his wife? youths, zopyrus, olympichus, soclarus. some young students, that had not gone far in the learning of the ancients, inveighed against epicurus for bringing in, in his svmposium, an impertinent and unseemly discourse, about what time was best to lie with a woman; for an old man at supper in the company of youths to talk of such a subject, and dispute whether after or before supper was the most convenient time, argued him to be a very loose and debauched man. to this some said that xenophon, after his entertainment was ended, sent all his guests home on horseback, to lie with their wives. but zopyrus the physician, a man very well read in epicurus, said, that they had not duly weighed that piece; for he did not propose that question first, and then discuss that matter on purpose; but after supper he desired the young men to take a walk, and he then discoursed on it, that he might persuade them to continence, and to abate their desires and restrain their appetites; showing them that it was very dangerous at all times, but especially after they had been eating or making merry. but suppose he had proposed this as the chief topic for discourse, doth it never become a philosopher to inquire which is the convenient and proper time? ought we not to time it well, and direct our embrace by reason? or may such discourse be otherwise allowed, and must they be thought unseemly problems to be proposed at table? indeed i am of another mind. it is true, i should blame a philosopher that in the middle of the day, in the schools, before all sorts of men, should discourse of such a subject; but over a glass of wine between friends and acquaintance, when it is necessary to propose something beside dull, serious discourse, why should it be a fault to hear or speak anything that may inform our judgments or direct our practice in such matters? and i protest i had rather that zeno had inserted his loose topics in some merry discourses and agreeable table-talk, than in such a grave, serious piece as his politics. the youth, startled at this free declaration, sat silent; and the rest of the company desired zopyrus to deliver epicurus's sentiment. he said: the particulars i cannot remember; but i believe he feared the violent agitations of such exercises, because the bodies employed in them are so violently disturbed. for it is certain that wine is a very great disturber, and puts the body out of its usual temper; and therefore, when thus disquieted, if quiet and sleep do not compose it but other agitations seize it, it is likely that those parts which knit and join the members may be loosened, and the whole frame be as it were unsettled from its foundation and overthrown. for then likewise the seed cannot freely pass, but is confusedly and forcibly thrown out, because the liquor hath filled the vessels of the body, and stopped its way. therefore, says epicurus, we must use those sports when the body is at quiet, when the meat hath been thoroughly digested, carried about and applied to several parts of the body, so that we begin to want a fresh supply of food. to this of epicurus we might join an argument taken from physic. at day-time, while our digestion is performing, we are not so lusty nor eager to embrace; and presently after supper to endeavor it is dangerous, for the crudity of the stomach, the food being yet undigested, may be disorderly motion upon this crudity, and so the mischief be double. olympicus, continuing the discourse, said: i very much like what clinias the pythagorean delivers. for the story goes that, being asked when a man should lie with a woman, he replied, when he hath a mind to receive the greatest mischief that he can. for zopyrus's discourse seems rational, and other times as well as those he mentions have their peculiar inconveniences. and therefore,--as thales the philosopher, to free himself from the pressing solicitations of his mother who advised him to marry, said at first, 'tis not yet time; and when, now he was growing old, she repeated her admonition, replied, nor is it now time,--so it is best for every man to have the same mind in relation to those sports of venus; when he goes to bed, let him say, 'tis not yet time; and when he rises, 'tis not now time. what you say, olympicus, said soclarus interposing, befits wrestlers indeed; it smells, methinks, of their meals of flesh and casks of wine, but is not suitable to the resent company, for there are some young married men here, whose duty 'tis to follow venus' sports. nay, we ourselves seem to have some relation to venus still, when in our hymns to the gods we pray thus to her, fair venus, keep off feeble age. but waiving this, let us inquire (if you think fit) whether epicurus does well, when contrary to all right and equity he separates venus and the night, though menander, a man well skilled in love matters, says that she likes her company better than that of any of the gods. for, in my opinion, night is a very convenient veil, spread over those that give themselves to that kind of pleasure; for it is not fit that day should be the time, lest modesty should be banished from our eyes, effeminacy grow bold, and such vigorous impressions on our memories be left, as might still possess us with the same fancies and raise new inclinations. for the sight (according to plato) receives a more vigorous impression than any other bodily organ, and joining with the imagination, that lies near it, works presently upon the soul, and ever causes fresh desires by those images of pleasure which it brings. but the night, hiding many and the most furious of the actions, quiets and lulls nature, and doth not suffer it to be carried to intemperance by the eye. but besides this, how absurd is it, that a man returning from an entertainment merry perhaps and jocund, crowned and perfumed, should cover himself up, turn his back to his wife, and go to sleep; and then at day-time, in the midst of his business, send for her out of her apartment to serve his pleasure or in the morning, as a cock treads his hens. no, sir the evening is the end of our labor, and the morning the beginning. bacchus the loosener and terpsichore and thalia preside over the former; and the latter raiseth us up betimes to attend on minerva the work-mistress, and mercury the merchandiser. and therefore songs, dances, and epithalamiums, merry-meetings, with balls and feasts, and sounds of pipes and flutes, are the entertainment of the one; but in the other, nothing but the noise of hammers and anvils, the scratching of saws, the city cries, citations to court or to attend this or that prince and magistrate are heard. then all the sports of pleasure disappear, then venus, then gay youth removes: no thyrsus then which bacchus loves; but all is clouded and o'erspread with care. besides, homer makes not one of the heroes lie with his wife or mistress in the day-time, but only paris, who, having shamefully fled from the battle, sneaked into the embraces of his wife; intimating that such lasciviousness by day did not befit the sober temper of a man, but the mad lust of an adulterer. but, moreover, the body will not (as epicurus fancies) be injured more after supper than at any other time, unless a man be drunk or overcharged,--for in those cases, no doubt, it is very dangerous and hurtful. but if a man is only raised and cheered, not overpowered by liquor, if his body is pliable, his mind agreeing, and then he sports, he need not fear any disturbance from the load he has within him; he need not fear catching cold, or too great a transportation of atoms, which epicurus makes the cause of all the ensuing harm. for if he lies quiet he will quickly fill again, and new spirits will supply the vessels that are emptied. but this is to be especially taken care of, that, the body being then in a ferment and disturbed, no cares of the soul, no business about necessary affairs, no labor, should distract and seize it, lest they should corrupt and sour its humors, nature not having had time enough for settling what has been disturbed. for, sir, all men have not the command of that happy ease and tranquillity which epicurus's philosophy procured him; for many great incumbrances seize almost upon every one every day, or at least some disquiets; and it is not safe to trust the body with any of these, when it is in such a condition and disturbance, presently after the fury and heat of the embrace is over. let, according to his opinion, the happy and immortal deity sit at ease and never mind us; but if we regard the laws of our country, we must not dare to enter into the temple and offer sacrifice, if but a little before we have done any such thing. it is fit therefore to let night and sleep intervene, and after there is a sufficient space of time past between, to rise as it were pure and new, and (as democritus was wont to say) "with new thoughts upon the new day." question vii. why new wine doth not inebriate as soon as other. plutarch, his father, hagias, aristaenetus, and other youth. at athens on the eleventh day of february (thence called [greek omitted] the barrel-opening), they began to taste their new wine; and in old times (as it appears), before they drank, they offered some to the gods, and prayed that that cordial liquor might prove good and wholesome. by us thebans the month is named [greek omitted], and it is our custom upon the sixth day to sacrifice to our good genius and then taste our new wine, after the zephyr has done blowing; for that wind makes wine ferment more than any other, and the liquor that can bear this fermentation is of a strong body and will keep well. my father offered the usual sacrifice, and when after supper the young men, my fellow-students, commended the wine, he started this question: why does not new wine inebriate as soon as other? this seemed a paradox and incredible to most of us; but hagias said, that luscious things were cloying and would presently satiate, and therefore few could drink enough to make them drunk; for when once the thirst is allayed, the appetite would be quickly palled by that unpleasant liquor; for that a luscious is different from a sweet taste, even the poet intimates, when he says, with luscious wine, and with sweet milk and cheese. ("odyssey, xx. 69.) wine at first is sweet; afterward, as it grows old, it ferments and begins to be pricked a little; then it gets a sweet taste. aristaenetus the nicaean said, that he remembered he had read somewhere that sweet things mixed with wine make it less heady, and that some physicians prescribe to one that hath drunk freely, before he goes to bed, a crust of bread dipped in honey. and therefore, if sweet mixtures weaken strong wine, it is reasonable that wine should not be heady till it hath lost its sweetness. we admired the acuteness of the young philosophers, and were well pleased to see them propose something out of the common road and give us their own sentiments on this matter. now the common and obvious reason is the heaviness of new wine,--which (as aristotle says) violently presseth the stomach,--or the abundance of airy and watery parts that lie in it; the former of which, as soon as they are pressed, fly out; and the watery parts are naturally fit to weaken the spirituous liquor. now, when it grows old, the juice is improved, and though by the separation of the watery parts it loses in quantity, it gets in strength. question viii. why do those that are stark drunk seem not so much debauched as those that are but half foxed? plutarch, his father. well then, said my father, since we have fallen upon aristotle, i will endeavor to propose something of my own concerning those that are half drunk; for, in my mind, though he was a very acute man, he is not accurate enough in such matters. they usually say, i think, that a sober man's understanding apprehends things right and judges well; the sense of one quite drunk is weak and enfeebled; but of him that is half drunk the fancy is vigorous and the understanding weakened, and therefore, following their own fancies, they judge, but judge ill. but pray, sirs, what is your opinion in these matters? this reason, i replied, would satisfy me upon a private disquisition; but if you will have my own sentiments, let us first consider, whether this difference doth not proceed from the different temper of the body. for of those that are only half drunk, the mind alone is disturbed, but the body not being quite overwhelmed is yet able to obey its motions; but when it is too much oppressed and the wine has overpowered it, it betrays and frustrates the motions of the mind, for men in such a condition never go so far as action. but those that are half drunk, having a body serviceable to the absurd motions of the mind, are rather to be thought to have greater ability to comply with those they have, than to have worse inclinations than the others. now if, proceeding on another principle, we consider the strength of the wine itself, nothing hinders but that this may be different and changeable, according to the quantity that is drunk. as fire, when moderate, hardens a piece of clay, but if very strong, makes it brittle and crumble into pieces; and the heat of the spring fires our blood with fevers but as the summer comes on, the disease usually abates; what hinders then but that the mind, being naturally raised by the power of the wine, when it is come to a pitch, should by pouring on more be weakened again and its force abated? thus hellebore, before it purges, disturbs the body; but if too small a dose be given, disturbs only and purges not at all; and some taking too little of an opiate are more restless than before; and some taking too much sleep well. besides, it is probable that this disturbance into which those that are half drunk are put, when it comes to a pitch, leads to that decay. for a great quantity being taken inflames the body and consumes the frenzy of the mind; as a mournful song and melancholy music at a funeral raises grief at first and forces tears, but as it continues, by little and little it takes away all dismal apprehensions and consumes our sorrows. thus wine, after it hath heated and disturbed, calms the mind again and quiets the frenzy; and when men are dead drunk, their passions are at rest. question ix. what is the meaning of the saying: drink either five or three, but not four? aristo, plutarch, plutarch's father. when i had said these things aristo, as his habit was, cried out: a return has been decreed in banquets to a very popular and just standard, which, because it was driven away by unseasonable temperance as if by the act of a tyrant, has long remained in exile. for just as those trained in the canons of the lyre declare the sesquialter proportion produces the symphony diapente, the double proportion the diapason, the sesquiterte the diatessaron, the slowest of all, so the specialists in bacchic harmonies have detected three accords between wine and water--diapente, diatrion, diatessaron. for so they speak and sing, "drink five or three, but not four." for five have the sesquialter proportion, three cups of water being mixed in two of wine; three, the double proportion, two being mixed with one; four, the sesquiterce, three cups of water to one of wine, which is the epitrite proportion for those exercising their minds in the council-chamber or frowning over dialectics, when changes of speeches are expected,--a sober and mild mixture. but in regard to those proportions of two to one, that mixture gives the strength by which we are confused and made half drunk, "exciting the chords of the soul never moved before." for it does not admit of sobriety, nor does it induce the senselessness of pure wine. the most harmonious is the proportion of two to three, provoking sleep, generating the forgetfulness of cares, and like that cornfield of hesiod, "which mildly pacifieth children and heals injuries." it composes in us the harsh and irregular motions of the soul and secures deep peace for it. against these sayings of aristo no one had anything to offer in reply, since it was quite evident he was jesting. i suggested to him to take a cup and treat it as a lyre, tuning it to the harmony and order he praised. at the same time a slave came offering him pure wine. but he refused it, saying with a laugh that he was discussing logical not organic music. to what had been said before my father added that jove seemed to have taken, according to the ancients, two nurses, ite and adrastea; juno one, euboea; apollo also two, truth and corythalea; but bacchus several, because he needed several measures of water to make him manageable, trained, milder, and more prudent. question x. why flesh stinks sooner when exposed to the moon, than to the sun. euthydemus, satyrus. euthydemus of sunium gave us at an entertainment a very large boar. the guests wondering at the bigness of the beast, he said that he had one a great deal larger, but in the carriage the moon had made it stink; he could not imagine how this should happen, for it was probable that the sun, being much hotter than the moon, should make it stink sooner. but, said satyrus, this is not so strange as the common practice of the hunters; for, when they send a boar or a doe to a city some miles distant, they drive a brazen nail into it to keep it from stinking. after supper euthydemus bringing the question into play again, moschio the physician said, that putrefaction was a colliquation of the flesh, and that everything that putrefied grew moister than before, and that all heat, if gentle, did stir the humors, though not force them out, but if strong, dry the flesh; and that from these considerations an answer to the question might be easily deduced. for the moon gently warming makes the body moist; but the sun by his violent beams dries rather, and draws all moisture from them. thus archilochus spoke like a naturalist, i hope hot sirius's beams will many drain, and homer more plainly concerning hector, over whose body apollo spread a thick cloud, lest the hot sun should scorch his naked limbs. (iliad, xxiii, 190.) now the moon's rays are weaker; for, as ion says, they do not ripen well the clustered grapes. when he had done, i said: the rest of the discourse i like very well, but i cannot consent when you ascribe this effect to the strength and degree of heat, and chiefly in the hot seasons; for in winter every one knows that the sun warms little, yet in summer it putrefies most. now the contrary should happen, if the gentleness of the heat were the cause of putrefaction. and besides, the hotter the season is, so much the sooner meat stinks; and therefore this effect is not to be ascribed to the want of heat in the moon, but to some particular proper quality in her beams. for heat is not different only by degrees; but in fires there are some proper qualities very much unlike one another, as a thousand obvious instances will prove. goldsmiths heat their gold in chaff fires; physicians use fires of vine-twigs in their distillations; and tamarisk is the best fuel for a glass-house. olive-boughs in a chimney warm very well, but hurt other baths: they spoil the plastering, and weaken the foundation; and therefore the most skilful of the public officers forbid those that rent the baths to burn olive-tree wood, or throw darnel seed into the fire, because the fumes of it dizzy and bring the headache to those that bathe. therefore it is no wonder that the moon differs in her qualities from the sun; and that the sun should shed some drying, and the moon some dissolving, influence upon flesh. and upon this account it is that nurses are very cautious of exposing their infants to the beams of the moon; for they being full of moisture, as green plants, are easily wrested and distorted. and everybody knows that those that sleep abroad under the beams of the moon are not easily waked, but seem stupid and senseless; for the moisture that the moon sheds upon them oppresses their faculty and disables their bodies. besides, it is commonly said, that women brought to bed when the moon is a fortnight old, have easy labors; and for this reason i believe that diana, which was the same with the moon, was called the goddess of childbirth. and timotheus appositely says, by the blue heaven that wheels the stars, and by the moon that eases women's pains. even in inanimate bodies the power of the moon is very evident. for trees that are cut in the full of the moon carpenters refuse, as being soft, and, by reason of their moistness, subject to corruption; and in its wane farmers usually thresh their wheat, that being dry it may better endure the flail; for the corn in the full of the moon is moist, and commonly bruised in threshing. besides, they say dough will be leavened sooner in the full, for then, though the leaven is scarce proportioned to the meal, yet it rarefies and leavens the whole lump. now when flesh putrefies, the combining spirit is only changed into a moist consistence, and the parts of the body separate and dissolve. and this is evident in the very air itself, for when the moon is full, most dew falls; and this alcman the poet intimates, when he somewhere calls dew the air's and moon's daughter, saying, see how the daughter of the moon and air does nourish all things. thus a thousand instances do prove that the light of the moon is moist, and carries with it a softening and corrupting quality. now the brazen nail that is driven through the flesh, if, as they say, it keeps the flesh from putrefying, doth it by an astringent quality proper to the brass. the rust of brass physicians use in astringent medicines, and they say those that dig brass ore have been cured of a rheum in their eyes, and that the hair upon their eyelids hath grown again; for the particles rising from the ore, being insensibly applied to the eyes, stops the rheum and dries up the humor, and upon this account, perhaps; homer calls brass [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], and aristotle says, that wounds made by a brazen dart or a brazen sword are less painful and sooner cured than those that are made of iron weapons, because brass hath something medicinal in itself, which in the very instant is applied to the wound. now it is manifest that astringents are contrary to putrefying, and healing to corrupting qualities. some perhaps may say, that the nail being driven through draws all the moisture to itself, for the humor still flows to the part that is hurt; and therefore it is said that by the nail there always appears some speck and tumor; and therefore it is rational that the other parts should remain sound, when all the corruption gathers about that. book iv. polybius, my sossius senecio, advised scipio africanus never to return from the forum, where he was conversant about the affairs of the city, before he had gained one new friend. where i suppose the word friend is not to be taken too nicely, to signify a lasting and unchangeable acquaintance; but, as it vulgarly means, a well-wisher, and as dicearchus takes it, when he says that we should endeavor to make all men well-wishers, but only good men friends. for friendship is to be acquired by time and virtue; but good-will is produced by a familiar intercourse, or by mirth and trifling amongst civil and genteel men, especially if opportunity assists their natural inclinations to good-nature. but consider whether this advice may not be accommodated to an entertainment as well as the forum; so that we should not break up the meeting before we had gained one of the company to be a well-wisher and a friend. other occasions draw men into the forum, but men of sense come to an entertainment as well to get new friends as to make their old ones merry; indeed, to carry away anything else is sordid and uncivil, but to depart with one friend more than we had is pleasing and commendable. and so, on the contrary, he that doth not aim at this renders the meeting useless and unpleasant to himself, and departs at last, having been a partaker of an entertainment with his belly but not with his mind. for he that makes one at a feast doth not come only to enjoy the meat and drink, but likewise the discourse, mirth, and genteel humor which ends at last in friendship and good-will. the wrestlers, that they may hold fast and lock better, use dust; and so wine mixed with discourse is of extraordinary use to make us hold fast of, and fasten upon, a friend. for wine tempered with discourse carries gentle and kind affections out of the body into the mind; otherwise, it is scattered through the limbs, and serves only to swell and disturb. thus as a marble, by cooling red hot iron, takes away its softness and makes it hard, fit to be wrought and receive impression; thus discourse at an entertainment doth not permit the men that are engaged to become altogether liquid by the wine, but confines and makes their jocund and obliging tempers very fit to receive an impression from the seal of friendship if dexterously applied. question i. whether different sorts of food, or one single dish fed upon at once, is more easily digested. philo, plutarch, marcion. the first question of my fourth decade of table discourses shall be concerning different sorts of food eaten at one meal. when we came to hyampolis at the feast called elaphebolia, philo the physician gave us a very sumptuous entertainment; and seeing a boy who came with philinus feeding upon dry bread and calling for nothing else, he cried out, o hercules, well i see the proverb is verified, they fought midst stones, but could not take up one, and presently went out to fetch him some agreeable food. he stayed some time, and at last brought them dried figs and cheese; upon which i said: it is usually seen that those that provide costly and superfluous dainties neglect, or are not well furnished with, useful and necessary things. i protest, said philo, i did not mind that philinus designs to breed us a young sosastrus, who (they say) never all his lifetime drank or ate anything beside milk, although it is probable that it was some change in his constitution that made him use this sort of diet; but our chiron here,--quite contrary to the old one that bred achilles from his very birth,--feeding his son with unbloody food, gives people reason to suspect that like a grasshopper he keeps him on dew and air. indeed, said philinus, i did not know that we were to meet with a supper of a hundred beasts, such as aristomenes made for his friends; otherwise i had come with some poor and wholesome food about me, as a specific against such costly and unwholesome entertainments. for i have often heard that simple diet is not only more easily provided, but likewise more easily digested, than such variety. at this marcion said to philo: philinus hath spoiled your whole provision by deterring guests from eating; but, if you desire it, i will be surety for you, that such variety is more easily digested than simple food, so that without fear or distrust they may feed heartily. philo desired him to do so. when after supper we begged philinus to discover what he had to urge against variety of food, he thus began: i am not the author of this opinion, but our friend philo here is ever now and then telling us, first, that wild beasts, feeding on one sort only and simple diet, are much more healthy than men are; and that those which are kept in pens are much more subject to diseases and crudities, by reason of the prepared variety we usually give them. secondly, no physician is so daring, so venturous at new experiments, as to give a feverish patient different sorts of food at once. no, simple food, and without sauce, as more easy to be digested, is the only diet they allow. now food must be wrought on and altered by our natural powers; in dyeing, cloth of the most simple color takes the tincture soonest; the most inodorous oil is soonest by perfumes changed into an essence; and simple diet is soonest changed, and soonest yields to the digesting power. for many and different qualities, having some contrariety, when they meet disagree and corrupt one another; as in a city, a mixed rout are not easily reduced into one body, nor brought to follow the same concerns; for each works according to its own nature, and is very hardly brought to side with another's quality. now this is evident in wine; mixed wine inebriates very soon, and drunkenness is much like a crudity rising from undigested wine; and therefore the drinkers hate mixed liquors, and those that do mix them do it privately, as afraid to have their design upon the company discovered. every change is disturbing and injurious, and therefore musicians are very careful how they strike many strings at once; though the mixture and variety of the notes would be the only harm that would follow. this i dare say, that belief and assent can be sooner procured by disagreeing arguments, than concoction by various and different qualities. but lest i should seem jocose, waiving this, i will return to philo's observations again. we have often heard him declare that it is the quality that makes meat hard to be digested; that to mix many things together is hurtful, and begets unnatural qualities; and that every man should take that which by experience he finds most agreeable to his temper. now if nothing is by its own nature hard to be digested, but it is the quantity that disturbs and corrupts, i think we have still greater reason to forbear that variety with which philo's cook, as it were in opposition to his master's practice, would draw us on to surfeits and diseases. for by the different sorts of food and new ways of dressing, he still keeps up the unwearied appetite, and leads it from one dish to another, till tasting of everything we take more than is sufficient and enough; as hypsipyle's foster-son, who, in a garden placed, plucked up the flowers, one after one, and spent delightful hours; but still his greedy appetite goes on, and still he plucked till all the flowers were gone. (from the "hypsipyle" of euripides, frag. 754.) but more, methinks, socrates is here to be remembered, who adviseth us to forbear those junkets which provoke those that are not hungry to eat; as if by this he cautioned us to fly variety of meats. for it is variety that in everything draws us on to use more than bare necessity requires. this is manifest in all sorts of pleasures, either of the eye, ear, or touch; for it still proposeth new provocatives; but in simple pleasures, and such as are confined to one sort, the temptation never carries us beyond nature's wants. in short, in my opinion, we should more patie musician praise a disagreeing variety of notes, or a perfumer mixed ointments, than a physician commend the variety of dishes; for certainly such changes and turnings as must necessarily ensue will force us out of the right way of health. philinus having ended his discourse, marcion said: in my opinion, not only those that separate profit from honesty are obnoxious to socrates's curse, but those also that separate pleasure from health, as if it were its enemy and opposite, and not its great friend and promoter. pain we use but seldom and unwillingly, as the most violent instrument. but from all things else, none, though he would willingly, can remove pleasure. it still attends when we eat, sleep, bathe, or anoint, and takes care of and nurses the diseased; dissipating all that is hurtful and disagreeable, by applying that which is proper, pleasing, and natural. for what pain, what want, what poison so quickly and so easily cures a disease as seasonable bathing? a glass of wine, when a man wants it, or a dish of palatable meat, presently frees us from all disturbing particles, and settles nature in its proper state, there being as it were a calm and serenity spread over the troubled humors. but those remedies that are painful do hardly and by little and little only promote the cure, every difficulty pushing on and forcing nature. and therefore let not philinus blame us, if we do not make all the sail we can to fly from pleasure, but more diligently endeavor to make pleasure and health, than other philosophers do to make pleasure and honesty, agree. now, in my opinion, philinus, you seem to be out in your first argument, where you suppose the beasts use more simple food and are more healthy than men; neither of which is true. the first the goats in eupolis confute, for they extol their pasture as full of variety and all sorts of herbs, in this manner, we feed almost on every kind of trees, young firs, the ilex, and the oak we crop: sweet trefoil fragrant juniper, and yew, wild olives, thyme,--all freely yield their store. these that i have mentioned are very different in taste, smell, and other qualities, and he reckons more sorts which i have omitted. the second homer skilfully refutes, when he tells us that the plague first began amongst the beasts. besides, the shortness of their lives proves that they are very subject to diseases; for there is scarce any irrational creature long lived, besides the crow and the chough; and those two every one knows do not confine themselves to simple food, but eat anything. besides, you take no good rule to judge what is easy and what is hard of digestion from the diet of those that are sick; for labor and exercise, and even to chew our meat well, contribute very much to digestion, neither of which can agree with a man in a fever. again, that the variety of meats, by reason of the different qualities of the particulars, should disagree and spoil one another, you have no reason to fear. for if nature takes from dissimilar bodies what is fit and agreeable, the diverse nourishment forces many and sundry qualities into the mass and bulk of the body, applying to every part that which is meet and fit; so that, as empedocles words it, the sweet runs to the sweet, the sour combines with sour, the sharp with sharp, the salt with salt; and after being mixed it is spread through the mass by the heat, the proper parts are separated and applied to the proper members. indeed, it is very probable that such bodies as ours, consisting of parts of different natures, should be nourished and built up rather of various than of simple matter. but if by concoction there is an alteration made in the food, this will be more easily performed when there are different sorts of meat, than when there is only one, in the stomach; for similars cannot work upon similars and the very contrariety in the mixture considerably promotes the alteration of the weakened qualities. but if, philinus, you are against all mixture, do not chide philo only for the variety of his dishes and sauces, but also for using mixture in his sovereign antidotes, which erasistratus calls the gods' hands. convince him of absurdity and vanity, when he mixes herbs, metals, and animals, and things from sea and land, in one potion; and recommend him to neglect these, and to confine all physic to barley-broth, gourds, and oil mixed with water. but you urge farther, that variety enticeth the appetite that hath no command over itself. that is, good sir, cleanly, wholesome, sweet, palatable, pleasing diet makes us eat and drink more than ordinary. why then, instead of fine flour, do not we thicken our broth with coarse bran? and instead of asparagus, why do we not dress nettle-tops and thistles; and leaving this fragrant and pleasant wine, drink sour, harsh liquor that gnats have been buzzing about a long while? because, perhaps you may reply, wholesome feeding doth not consist in a perfect avoiding of all that is pleasing, but in moderating the appetite in that respect, and making it prefer profit before pleasure. but, sir, as a mariner has a thousand ways to avoid a stiff gale of wind, but when it is clear down and a perfect calm, cannot raise it again; thus to correct and restrain our extravagant appetite is no hard matter, but when it grows weak and faint, when it fails as to its proper objects, then to raise it and make it vigorous and active again is, sir, a very difficult and hard task. and therefore variety of viands is as much better than simple food, which is apt to satisfy by being but of one sort, as it is easier to stop nature when she makes too much speed than to force her on when languishing and faint. besides, what some say, that fullness is more to be avoided than emptiness, is not true; but, on the contrary, fullness then only hurts when it ends in a surfeit or disease; but emptiness, though it doth no other mischief, is of itself unnatural. and let this suffice as an answer to what you proposed. but you sparing men have forgot, that variety is sweeter and more desired by the appetite, unless too sweet. for, the sight preparing the way, it is soon assimilated to the eager receiving body; but that which is not desirable nature either throws off again, or keeps it in for mere want. but pray observe this, that i do not plead for variety in tarts, cakes, or custards;--those are vain, insignificant, and superfluous things;--but even plato allowed variety to those fine citizens of his, setting before them onions, olives, leeks, cheese, and all sorts of meat and fish, and besides these, allowed them some comfits. question ii. why mushrooms are thought to be produced by thunder, and why it is believed that men asleep are never thunderstruck. agemachus, plutarch, dorotheus. at a supper in elis, agemachus set before us very large mushrooms. and when all admired at them, one with a smile said, these are worthy the late thunder, as it were deriding those who imagine mushrooms are produced by thunder. some said that thunder did split the earth, using the air as a wedge for that purpose, and that by those chinks those that sought after mushrooms were directed where to find them; and thence it grew a common opinion, that thunder engenders mushrooms, and not only makes them a passage to appear; as if one should imagine that a shower of rain breeds snails, and not rather makes them creep forth and be seen abroad. agemachus stood up stiffly for the received opinion, and told us, we should not disbelieve it only because it was strange, for there are a thousand other effects of thunder and lightning and a thousand omens deduced from them, whose causes it is very hard, if not impossible, to discover; for this laughed-at, this proverbial mushroom doth not escape the thunder because it is so little, but because it hath some antipathetical qualities that preserve it from blasting; as likewise a fig-tree, the skin of a sea-calf (as they say), and that of the hyena, with which sailors cover the ends of their sails. and husbandmen call thunder-showers nourishing, and think them to be so. indeed, it is absurd to wonder at these things, when we see the most incredible things imaginable in thunder, as flame rising out of moist vapors, and from soft clouds such astonishing noises. thus, he continued, i prattle, exhorting you to inquire after the cause; and i shall accept this as your club for these mushrooms. then i began: agemachus himself helps us exceedingly towards this discovery; for nothing at the present seems more probable than that, together with the thunder, oftentimes generative waters fall, which take that quality from the heat mixed with them. for the piercing pure parts of the fire break away in lightning; but the grosser windy part, being wrapped up in cloud, changes it, taking away the coldness and heating the moisture, altering and being altered with it, affects it so that it is made fit to enter the pores of plants, and is easily assimilated to them. besides, such rain gives those things which it waters a peculiar temperature and difference of juice. thus dew makes the grass sweeter to the sheep, and the clouds from which a rainbow is reflected make those trees on which they fall fragrant. and our priests, distinguishing it by this, call the wood of those trees iris-struck, fancying that iris, or the rainbow, hath rested on them. now it is probable that when these thunder and lightning showers with a great deal of warmth and spirit descend forcibly into the caverns of the earth, these are rolled around, and knobs and tumors are formed like those produced by heat and noxious humors in our bodies, which we call wens or kernels. for a mushroom is not like a plant, neither is it produced without rain; it hath no root nor sprouts, it depends on nothing, but is a being by itself, having its substance of the earth, a little changed and altered. if this discourse seems frivolous, i assure you that such are most of the effects of thunder and lightning which we see; and upon that account men think them to be immediately directed by heaven, and not depending on natural causes. dorotheus the rhetorician, one of our company, said: you speak right, sir, for not only the vulgar and illiterate, but even some of the philosophers, have been of that opinion. i remember here in this town lightning broke into a house and did a great many strange things. it let the wine out of a vessel, though the earthen vessel remained whole; and falling upon a man asleep, it neither hurt him nor blasted his clothes, but melted certain pieces of silver that he had in his pocket, defaced them quite, and made them run into a lump. upon this he went to a philosopher, a pythagorean, that sojourned in the town, and asked the reason; the philosopher directed him to some expiating rites, and advised him to consider seriously with himself and go to prayers. and i have been told, upon a sentinel at rome, as he stood to guard the temple, burned the latchet of his shoe, and did no other harm; and several silver candlesticks lying in wooden boxes, the silver was melted while the boxes lay untouched. these stories you may believe or not as you please. but that which is most wonderful, and which everybody knows, is this,--the bodies of those that are killed by thunderbolt never putrefy. for many neither burn nor bury such bodies, but let them lie above ground with a fence about them, so that every one may see the they remain uncorrupted, confuted by this euripides's clymene, who says thus of phaeton, my best beloved, but now he lies and putrefies in some dark vale. and i believe brimstone is called [greek omitted] (divine), because its smell is like that fiery offensive scent which rises from bodies that are thunderstruck. and i suppose that, because of this scent, dogs and birds will not prey on such carcasses. thus far have i gone; let him proceed, since he hath been applauded for his discourse of mushrooms, lest the same jest might be put upon us that was upon androcydes the painter. for when in his landscape of scylla he painted fish the best and most to the life of anything in the whole draught, he was said to use his appetite more than his art, for he naturally loved fish. so some may say that we philosophize about mushrooms, the cause of whose production is confessedly doubtful, for the pleasure we take in eating them.... and when i put in my suggestion, saying that it was as seasonable to dispute about thunder and lightning amidst our banquets as it would be in a comedy to bring in machines to throw out lightning, the company agreed to omit all other questions relating to the subject, and desired me only to proceed on this head, why men asleep are never struck with lightning. and i, though i knew i should get no great credit by proposing a cause whose reason was common to other things, said thus: lightning is wonderfully piercing and subtile, partly because it rises from a very pure substance, and partly because by the swiftness of its motion it purges itself and throws off all gross earthy particles that are mixed with it. nothing, says democritus, is blasted with lightning, that cannot resist and stop the motion of the pure flame. thus the close bodies, as brass, silver, and the like, which stop it, feel its force and are melted, because they resist; whilst rare, thin bodies, and such as are full of pores, are passed through and are not hurted, as clothes or dry wood. it blasts green wood or grass, the moisture within them being seized and kindled by the flame. now if it is true that men asleep are never killed by lightning, from what we have proposed, and not from anything else, we must endeavor to draw the cause. now the bodies of those that are awake are stiffer and more apt to resist, all the parts being full of spirits; which as it were in a harp, distending and screwing up the organs of sense, makes the body of the animal firm, close, and compacted. but when men are asleep, the organs are let down, and the body becomes rare, lax, and loose; and the spirits failing, it hath abundance of pores, through which small sounds and smells do flow insensibly. for in that case, there is nothing that can resist and by this resistance receive any sensible impression from any objects that are presented, much less from such as are so subtile and move so swiftly as lightning. things that are weak nature shields from harm, fencing them about with some hard, thick covering; but those things that cannot be resisted do less harm to the bodies that yield than to those that oppose their force. besides, those that are asleep are not startled at the thunder; they have no consternation upon them, which kills a great many that are no otherwise hurt, and we know that thousands die with the very fear of being killed. even shepherds teach their sheep to run together when it thunders, for whilst they lie scattered they die with fear; and we see thousands fall, which have no marks of any stroke or fire about them, their souls (as it seems), like birds, flying out of their bodies at the fright. for many, as euripides says, a clap hath killed, yet ne'er drew drop of blood. for certainly the hearing is a sense that is soonest and most vigorously wrought upon, and the fear that is caused by an astonishing noise raiseth the greatest commotion and disturbance in the body; from all which men asleep, because insensible, are secure. but those that are awake are oftentimes killed with fear before they are touched; the fear contracts and condenses the body, so that the stroke must be strong, because there is so considerable a resistance. question iii. why men usually invite many guests to a wedding supper. sossius senecio, plutarch, theo. at my son autobulus's marriage, sossius senecio from chaeronea and a great many other noble persons were present at the same feast; which gave occasion to this question (senecio proposed it), why to a marriage feast more guests are usually invited than to any other. nay even those law-givers that chiefly opposed luxury and profuseness have particularly confined marriage feasts to a set number. indeed, in my opinion, he continued, hecataeus the abderite, one of the old philosophers, hath said nothing to the purpose in this matter, when he tells us that those that marry wives invite a great many to the entertainment, that many may see and be witnesses that they being born free take to themselves wives of the same condition. for, on the contrary, the comedians reflect on those who revel at their marriages, who make a great ado and are pompous in their feasts, as such who are taking wives with not much confidence and courage. thus, in menander, one replies to a bridegroom that bade him beset the house with dishes,... your words are great, but what's this to your bride? but lest i should seem to find fault with those reasons others give, only because i have none of my own to produce, continued he, i will begin by declaring that there is no such evident or public notice given of any feast as there is of one at a marriage. for when we sacrifice to the gods, when we take leave of or receive a friend, a great many of our acquaintance need not know it. but a marriage dinner is proclaimed by the loud sound of the wedding song, by the torches and the music, which as homer expresseth it, the women stand before the doors to see and hear. (iliad, xviii. 495.) and therefore when everybody knows it, the persons are ashamed to omit the formality of an invitation, and therefore entertain their friends and kindred, and every one that they are anyway acquainted with. this being generally approved, well, said theo, speaking next, let it be so, for it looks like truth; but let this be added, if you please, that such entertainments are not only friendly, but also kindredly, the persons beginning to have a new relation to another family. but there is something more considerable, and that is this; since by this marriage two families join in one, the man thinks it his duty to be civil and obliging to the woman's friends, and the woman's friends think themselves obliged to return the same to him and his; and upon this account the company is doubled. and besides, since most of the little ceremonies belonging to the wedding are performed by women, it is necessary that, where they are entertained, their husbands should be likewise present. question iv. whether the sea or land affords better food. callistratus, symmachus, polycrates. aedepsus in euboea, where the baths are, is a place by nature every way fitted for free and gentle pleasures, and withal so beautified with stately edifices and dining rooms, that one would take it for no other than the common place of repast for all greece. here, though the earth and air yield plenty of creatures for the service of men, the sea no less furnisheth the table with variety of dishes, nourishing a store of delicious fish in its deep and clear waters. this place is especially frequented in the spring; for hither at this time of year abundance of people resort, solacing themselves in the mutual enjoyment of all those pleasures the place affords, and at spare hours pass away the time in many useful and edifying discourses. when callistratus the sophist lived here, it was a hard matter to dine at any place besides his house; for he was so extremely courteous and obliging, that no man whom he invited to dinner could have the face to say him nay. one of his best humors was to pick up all the pleasant fellows he could meet with, and put them in the same room. sometimes he did, as cimon one of the ancients used to do, and satisfactorily treated men of all sorts and fashions. but he always (so to speak) followed celeus, who was the first man, it is said, that assembled daily a number of honorable persons of distinction, and called the place where they met the prytaneum. several times at these public meetings divers agreeable discourses were raised; and it fell out that once a very splendid treat, adorned with all variety of dainties, gave occasion for inquiries concerning food, whether the land or sea yielded better. here when a great part of the company were highly commanding the land, as abounding with many choice, nay, an infinite variety of all sorts of creatures, polycrates calling to symmachus, said to him: but you, sir, being an animal bred between two seas, and brought up among so many which surround your sacred nicopolis, will not you stand up for neptune? yes, i will, replied symmachus, and therefore command you to stand by me, who enjoy the most pleasant part of all the achaean sea. well, says polycrates, the beginning of my discourse shall be grounded upon custom; for as of a great number of poets we usually give one, who far excels the rest, the famous name of poet; so though there be many sorts of dainties, yet custom has so prevailed that the fish alone, or above all the rest, is called [greek omitted], because it is more excellent than all others. for we do not call those gluttonous and great eaters who love beef as hercules, who after flesh used to eat green figs; nor those that love figs, as plato; nor lastly, those that are for grapes, as arcesilaus; but those who frequent the fish-market, and soonest hear the market-bell. thus when demosthenes had told philocrates that the gold he got by treachery was spent upon whores and fish, he upbraids him as a gluttonous and lascivious fellow. and ctesiphon said pat enough, when a certain glutton cried aloud in company that he should burst asunder: no, by no means let us be baits for your fish! and what did he mean, do you think, who made this verse, you capers gnaw, when you may sturgeon eat? and what, for god's sake, do those men mean who, inviting one another to sumptuous collations, usually say: to-day we will dine upon the shore? is it not that they suppose, what is certainly true, that a dinner upon the shore is of all others most delicious? not by reason of the waves the sea-coast would be content to feed upon a pulse or a caper?--but because their table is furnished with plenty of fresh fish. add to this, that sea-food is dearer than any other. wherefore cato inveighing against the luxury of the city, did not exceed the bounds of truth, when he said that at rome a fish was sold for more than an ox. for they sell a small pot of fish for as much as a hecatomb of sheep and all the accessories of sacrifice. besides, as the physician is the best judge of physic, and the musician of songs; so he is able to give the best account of the goodness of meat who is the greatest lover of it. for i will not make pythagoras and xenocrates arbitrators in this case; but antagoras the poet, and philoxenus the son of eryxis, and androcydes the painter, of whom it was reported that, when he drew a landscape of scylla, he drew fish in a lively manner swimming round her, because he was a great lover of them. so antigonus the king, surprising antagoras the poet in the habit of a cook, broiling congers in his tent, said to him: dost thou think that homer was dressing congers when he writ agamemnon's famous exploits? and he as smartly replied: do you think that agamemnon did so many famous exploits when he was inquiring who dressed congers in the camp? these arguments, says polycrates, i have urged in behalf of fishmongers, drawing them from testimony and custom. but, says symmachus, i will go more seriously to work, and more like a logician. for if that may truly be said to be a relish which gives meat the best relish, it will evidently follow, that that is the best sort of relish which gets men the best stomach to their meat. therefore, as those philosophers who were called elpistics (from the greek word signifying hope, which above all others they cried up) averred that there was nothing in the world which concurred more to the preservation of life than hope, without whose gracious influence life would be a burden and altogether intolerable; in the like manner that of all other things may be said to get us a stomach to our meat without which all meat would be unpalatable and nauseous. and among all those things the earth yields, we find no such things as salt, which we can only have from the sea. first of all, without salt, there would be nothing eatable which mixed with flour seasons bread also. neptune and ceres had both the same temple. besides, salt is the most pleasant of all condiments. for those heroes who like athletes used themselves to a spare diet, banishing from their tables all vain and superfluous delicacies, to such a degree that when they encamped by the hellespont they abstained from fish, yet for all this could not eat flesh without salt; which is a sufficient evidence that salt is the most desirable of all relishes. for as colors need light, so tastes require salt, that they may affect the sense, unless you would have them very nauseous and unpleasant. for, as heraclitus used to say, a carcass is more abominable than dung. now all flesh is dead and part of a lifeless carcass; but the virtue of salt, being added to it, like a soul, gives it a pleasing relish and a poignancy. hence it comes to pass that before meat men use to take sharp things, and such as have much salt in them; for these beguile us into an appetite. and whoever has his stomach sharpened with these sets cheerfully and freshly upon all other sorts of meat. but if he begin with any other kind of food, all on a sudden his stomach grows dull and languid. and therefore salt doth not only make meat but drink palatable. for homer's onion, which, he tells us, they were used to eat before they drank, was fitter for seamen and boatmen than kings. things moderately salt, by being pleasing to the mouth, make all sorts of wine mild and palateable, and water itself of a pleasing taste. besides, salt creates none of those troubles which an onion does, but digests all other kinds of meat, making them tender and fitter for concoction; so that at the same time it is sauce to the palate and physic to the body. but all other seafood, besides this pleasantness, is also very innocent for though it be fleshly, yet it does not load the stomach as all other flesh does, but is easily concocted and digested. this zeno will avouch for me, and crato too, who confine sick persons to a fish diet, as of all others the lightest sort of meat. and it stands with reason, that the sea should produce the most nourishing and wholesome food, seeing it yields us the most refined, the purest and therefore the most agreeable air. you say right, says lamprias, but let us think of something else to confirm what you have spoken. i remember my old grandfather was used to say in derision of the jews, that they abstained from most lawful flesh; but we will say that that is the most lawful meat which comes from the sea. for we can claim no great right over land creatures, which are nourished with the same food, draw the same air, wash in and drink the same water, that we do ourselves; and when they are slaughtered, they make us ashamed of what we are doing, with their hideous cries; and then again, by living amongst us, they arrive at some degree of familiarity and intimacy with us. but sea creatures are altogether strangers to us, and are born and brought up as it were in another world; neither does their voice, look, or any service they have done us plead for their life. for this kind of creatures are of no use at all to us, nor is there any necessity that we should love them. but that place which we inhabit is hell to them, and as soon as ever they enter upon it they die. question v. whether the jews abstained from swine's flesh because they worshipped that creature, or because they had an antipathy against it. callistratus, polycrates, lamprias. after these things were spoken, and some in the company were minded to say something in defence of the contrary opinion, callistratus interrupted their discourse and said: sirs, what do you think of that which was spoken against the jews, that they abstain from the most lawful flesh? very well said, quoth polycrates, for that is a thing i very much question, whether it was that the jews abstained from swine's flesh because they conferred divine honor upon that creature, or because they had a natural aversion to it. for whatever we find in their own writings seems to be altogether fabulous, except they have some more solid reasons which they have no mind to discover. hence it is, says callistratus, that i am of an opinion that this nation has that creature in some veneration; and though it be granted that the hog is an ugly and filthy creature, yet it is not quite so vile nor naturally stupid as a beetle, griffin, crocodile, or cat, most of which are worshipped as the most sacred things by some priests amongst the egyptians. but the reason why the hog is had in so much honor and veneration amongst them is, because as the report goes, that creature breaking up the earth with its snout showed the way to tillage, and taught them how to use the ploughshare, which instrument for that very reason, as some say, was called hynis from [greek omitted], a swine. now the egyptians inhabiting a country situated low and whose soil is naturally soft, have no need of the plough; but after the river nile hath retired from the grounds it overflowed, they presently let in all their hogs into the fields, and they with their feet and snout break up the ground, and cover the sown seed. nor ought this to seem strange to anyone, that there are in the world those that abstain from swine's flesh on such an account as this; when it is evident that in barbarous nations there are other animals had in greater honor and veneration for lesser reasons, if not altogether ridiculous. for the field-mouse only for its blindness was worshipped as a god among the egyptians, because they were of an opinion that darkness was before light and that the latter had its birth from mice about the fifth generation at the new moon; and moreover that the liver of this creature diminishes in the wane of the moon. but they consecrate the lion to the sun, because the lioness alone, of all clawed four-footed beasts, brings forth her young with their eyesight; for they sleep in a moment, and when they are asleep their eyes sparkle. besides, they place gaping lions' heads for the spouts of their fountains, because nilus overflows the egyptian fields when the sign is leo: they give it out that their bird ibis, as soon as hatched, weighs two drachms, which are of the same weight with the heart of a newborn infant; and that its legs being spread with the bill an exact equilateral triangle. and yet who can find fault with the egyptians for these trifles, when it is left upon record that the pythagoreans worshipped a white cock, and of sea creatures abstained especially from mullet and urtic. the magi that descended from zoroaster adored the land hedgehog above other creatures but had a deadly spite against water-rats, and thought that man was dear in the eyes of the gods who destroyed most of them. but i should think that if the jews had such an antipathy against a hog, they would kill it as the magicians do mice; when, on the contrary, they are by their religion as much prohibited to kill as to eat it. and perhaps there may be some reason given for this; for as the ass is worshipped by them as the first discoverer of fountains, so perhaps the hog may be had in like veneration, which first taught them to sow and plough. nay, some say that the jews also abstain from hares, as abominable and unclean creatures. they have reason for that, said lamprias, because a hare is so like an ass which they detest; for in its color, ears, and the sparkling of its eyes, it is so like an ass, that i do not know any little creature that represents a great one so much as a hare doth an ass; except in this likewise imitating the egyptians, they suppose that there is something of divinity in the swiftness of this creature, as also in its quickness of sense; for the eyes of hares are so unwearied that they sleep with them open. besides, they seem to excel all other creatures in quickness of hearing; whence it was that the egyptians painted a hare's ear amongst their other hieroglyphics, as an emblem of hearing. but the jews do hate swine's flesh, because all the barbarians are naturally fearful of a scab and leprosy, which they presume comes by eating such kind of flesh. for we may observe that all pigs under the belly are overspread with a leprosy and scab; which may be supposed to proceed from an ill disposition of body and corruption within, which breaks out through the skin. besides, swine's feeding is commonly so nasty and filthy, that it must of necessity cause corruptions and vicious humors; for, setting aside those creatures that are bred from and live upon dung, there is no other creature that takes so much delight to wallow in the mire and in other unclean and stinking places. hogs' eyes are said to be so flattened and fixed upon the ground, that they see nothing above them, nor ever look up to the sky, except when turned upon their back they turn their eyes upwards contrary to nature. therefore this creature, at other times most clamorous' when laid upon his back, is still, as astonished at the unusual sight of the heavens; while the greatness of the fear he is in (as it is supposed) is the cause of his silence. and if it be lawful to intermix our discourse with fables, it is said that adonis was slain by a boar. now adonis is supposed to be the same with bacchus; and there are a great many rites in both their sacrifices which confirm this opinion. others will have adonis to be bacchus's paramour; and phanocles an amorous love-poet writes thus, bacchus on hills the fair adonis saw, and ravished him, and reaped a wondrous joy. question vi. what god is worshipped by the jews. symmachus, lamprias, moeragenes. here symmachus, greatly wondering at what was spoken, says: what, lamprias, will you permit our tutelar god, called evius, the inciter of women, famous for the honors he has conferred upon him by madmen, to be inscribed and enrolled in the mysteries of the jews? or is there any solid reason that can be given to prove adonis to be the same with bacchus? here moeragenes interposing, said: do not be so fierce upon him, for i who am an athenian answer you, and tell you, in short, that these two are the very same. and no man is able or fit to bring the chief confirmation of this truth, but those amongst us who are initiated and skilled in the triennial [greek omitted] or chief mysteries of the god. but what no religion forbids to speak of among friends, especially over wine, the gift of bacchus, i am ready at the command of these gentlemen to disclose. when all the company requested and earnestly begged it of him; first of all (says he), the time and manner of the greatest and most holy solemnity of the jews is exactly agreeable to the holy rites of bacchus; for that which they call the fast they celebrate in the midst of the vintage, furnishing their tables with all sorts of fruits while they sit under tabernacles made of vines and ivy; and the day which immediately goes before this they call the day of tabernacles. within a few days after they celebrate another feast, not darkly but openly, dedicated to bacchus, for they have a feast amongst them called kradephoria, from carrying palm-trees, and thyrsophoria, when they enter into the temple carrying thyrsi. what they do within i know not; but it is very probable that they perform the rites of bacchus. first they have little trumpets, such as the grecians used to have at their bacchanalia to call upon their gods withal. others go before them playing upon harps, which they call levites, whether so named from lusius or evius,--either word agrees with bacchus. and i suppose that their sabbaths have some relation to bacchus; for even now many call the bacchi by the name of sabbi, and they make use of that word at the celebration of bacchus's orgies. and this may be discovered out of demosthenes and menander. nor would it be out of place, were any one to say that the name sabbath was given to this feast from the agitation and excitement [greek omitted] which the priests of bacchus display. the jews themselves witness no less; for when they keep the sabbath, they invite one another to drink till they are drunk; or if they chance to be hindered by some more weighty business, it is the fashion at least to taste the wine. some perhaps may surmise that these are mere conjectures. but there are other arguments which will clearly evince the truth of what i assert. the first may be drawn from their high-priest, who on holidays enters their temple with his mitre on, arrayed in a skin of a hind embroidered with gold, wearing buskins, and a coat hanging down to his ankles; besides, he has a great many little bells depending from his garment which make a noise as he walks. so in the nocturnal ceremonies of bacchus (as the fashion is amongst us), they make use of music, and call the god's nurses [greek omitted]. high up on the wall of their temple is a representation of the thyrsus and timbrels, which surely suits no other god than bacchus. mor ancients were wont to make themselves drunk, before the vine was known. and at this day barbarous people who want wine drink metheglin, allaying the sweetness of the honey by bitter roots, much of the taste of our wine. the greeks offered to their gods these temperate offerings or honey-offerings, as they called them, because that honey was of a nature quite contrary to wine. but this is no inconsiderable argument that bacchus was worshipped by the jews, in that, amongst other kinds of punishment, that was most remarkably odious by which malefactors were forbid the use of wine for so long a time as the judge thought fit to prescribe. those thus punished.... (the remainder of the fourth book is wanting.) question vii. why the days which have the names of the planets are not arranged according to the order of the planets, but the contrary. there is added a discourse on the position of the sun. question viii. why signet-rings are worn chiefly on the fourth finger. question ix. whether we ought to carry in our seal-rings effigies of gods, or those of wise personages. question x. why women do not eat the middle part of lettuce. book v. what is your opinion at present, sossius senecio, of the pleasures of mind and body, is not evident to me; because us two a thousand things divide, vast shady hills, and the rough ocean's tide. ("iliad" i. 156) but formerly, i am sure, you did not lean to nor like their opinion, who will not allow the soul to have any proper agreeable pleasure, which without respect to the body she desires for herself; but define that she lives as a form assistant to the body, is directed by the passions of it, and, as that is affected, is either pleased or grieved, or, like a looking-glass, only receives the images of those sensible impressions made upon the body. this sordid and debasing opinion is especially confuted as follows; for at a feast, the genteel well-bred men after supper fall upon some topic or another as second course, and cheer one another by their pleasant talk. now the body hath very little or no share in this; which evidently proves that this is a particular banquet for the soul, and that those pleasures are peculiar to her, and different from those which pass to her through the body and are vitiated thereby. now, as nurses, when they feed children, taste a little of their pap, and have but little pleasure therefrom, but when the infants are satisfied, leave crying, and go to sleep, then being at their own disposal, they take such meat and drink as is agreeable to their own bodies; thus the soul partakes of the pleasures that arise from eating and drinking, like a nurse, being subservient to the appetites of the body, kindly yielding to its necessities and wants, and calming its desires; but when that is satisfied and at rest, then being free from her business and servile employment, she seeks her own proper pleasures, revels on discourse, problems, stories, curious questions, or subtle resolutions. nay, what shall a man say, when he sees the dull unlearned fellows after supper minding such pleasures as have not the least relation to the body? they tell tales, propose riddles, or set one another a-guessing at names, comprised and hid under such and such numbers. thus mimics, drolls, menander and his actors were admitted into banquets, not because they can free the eye from any pain, or raise any tickling motion in the flesh; but because the soul, being naturally philosophical and a lover of instruction, covets its own proper pleasure and satisfaction, when it is free from the trouble of looking after the body. question i. why we take delight in hearing those that represent the passions of men angry or sorrowful, and yet cannot without concern behold those who are really so affected? plutarch, boethus. of this we discoursed in your company at athens, when strato the comedian (for he was a man of great credit) flourished. for being entertained at supper by boethus the epicurean, with a great many more of the sect, as it usually happens when learned and inquisitive men meet together, the remembrance of the comedy led us to this inquiry,--why we are disturbed at the real voices of men, either angry, pensive, or afraid, and yet are delighted to hear others represent them, and imitate their gestures, speeches, and exclamations. every one in the company gave almost the same reason. for they said, he that only represents excels him that really feels, inasmuch as he doth not suffer the misfortunes; which we knowing are pleased and delighted on that account. but i, though it was not properly my talent, said that we, being by nature rational and lovers of ingenuity, are delighted with and admire everything that is artificially and ingeniously contrived. for as a bee, naturally loving sweet things, seeks after and flies to anything that has any mixture of honey in it; so man, naturally loving ingenuity and elegancy, is very much inclined to accept and highly approve every word or action that is seasoned with wit and judgement. thus, if any one offers a child a piece of bread, and at the same time, a little dog or ox made in paste, we shall see the boy run eagerly to the latter; so likewise if anyone, offers silver in the lump, and another a beast or a cup of the same metal, he will rather choose that in which he sees a mixture of art and reason. upon the same account it is that a child is much in love with riddles, and such fooleries as are difficult and intricate; for whatever is curious and subtle doth attract and allure mankind, as antecedently to all instruction agreeable and proper to it. and therefore, because he that is really affected with grief or anger presents us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights us. it is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one at his last gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of philoctetes, or the statue of jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the workmen mixed silver, so that the brass might depict the face and color of one ready to faint and expire. and this, said i, the cyrenaics may use as a strong argument against you epicureans, that all the sense of pleasure which arises from the working of any object on the ear or eye is not in those organs, but in the intellect itself. thus the continual cackling of a hen or cawing of a crow is very ungrateful and disturbing; yet he that imitates those noises well pleases the hearers. thus to behold a consumptive man is no delightful spectacle; yet with pleasure we can view the pictures and statues of such persons, because the very imitating hath something in it very agreeable to the mind, which allures and captivates its faculties. for upon what other account, for god's sake, from what external impression upon our organs, should men be moved to admire parmeno's sow so much as to pass it into a proverb? yet it is reported, that parmeno being very famous for imitating the grunting of a pig, some endeavoured to rival and outdo him. and when the hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, very well indeed, but nothing comparable to parmeno's sow; one took a pig under his arm and came upon the stage. and when, though they heard the very pig, they still continued, this is nothing comparable to parmeno's sow; he threw his pig amongst them, to show that they judged according to opinion and not truth. and hence it is very evident, that like motions of the sense do not always raise like affections in the mind, when there is not an opinion that the thing done was not neatly and ingeniously performed. question ii. that the prize for poets at the games was ancient. at the solemnity of the pythian names, there was a consult about taking away all such sports as had lately crept in and were not of ancient institution. for after they had taken in the tragedy in addition to the three ancient, which were as old as the solemnity itself, the pythian piper, the harper, and the singer to the harp, as if a large gate were opened, they could not keep out an infinite crowd of plays and musical entertainments of all sorts that rushed in after him. which indeed made no unpleasant variety, and increased the company, but yet impaired the gravity and neatness of the solemnity. besides it must create a great deal of trouble to the umpires, and considerable dissatisfaction to very many, since but few could obtain the prize. it was chiefly agreed upon, that the orators and poets should be removed; and this determination did not proceed from any hatred to learning, but forasmuch as such contenders are the most noted and worthiest men of all, therefore they reverence them, and were troubled that, when they must judge every one very deserving, they could not bestow the prize equally upon all. i, being present at this consult, dissuaded those who were for removing things from their present settled order, and who thought this variety as unsuitable to the solemnity as many strings and many notes to an instrument. and when at supper, petraeus the president and director of the sports entertaining us, the same subject was discoursed on, i defended music, and maintained that poetry was no upstart intruder, but that it was time out of mind admitted into the sacred games, and crowns were given to the best performer. some straight imagined that i intended to produce some old musty stories, like the funeral solemnities of oeolycus the thessalian or of amphidamas the chalcidean, in which they say homer and hesiod contended for the prize. but passing by these instances as the common theme of every grammarian, as likewise their criticisms who, in the description of patroclus's obsequies in homer, read [greek omitted] orators, and not [greek omitted], darters, ("iliad," xxiii, 886.) as if achilles had proposed a prize for the best speaker,--omitting all these, i said that acastus at his father pelias's funeral set a prize for contending poets, and sibylla won it. at this, a great many demanding some authority for this unlikely and incredible relation, i happily recollecting myself produced acesander, who in his description of africa hath this relation; but i must confess this is no common book. but polemo the athenian's "commentary of the treasures of the city delphi" i suppose most of you have diligently perused, he being a very learned man in the greek antiquities. in him you shall find that in the sicyonian treasure there was a golden book dedicated to the god, with this inscription: aristomache, the poetess of erythraea, dedicated this after she had got the prize at the isthmian games. nor is there any reason, i continued, why we should so admire and reverence the olympic games, as if, like fate, they were unalterable, and never admitted any change since the first institution. for the pythian, it is true, hath had three or four musical prizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for the most part the same from the beginning. but in the olympian all beside racing are late additions. they instituted some, and abolished them again; such were the races of mules, either rode or in a chariot as likewise the crown appointed for boys that were victor's in the five contests. and, in short, a thousand things in those games are mere novelties. at pisa they had a single combat, where he that yielded or was overcome was killed upon the place. but pray for the future require no author for my story, lest i may appear ridiculous if amidst my cups i should forget the name. question iii. why was the pine counted sacred to neptune and bacchus? and why at first the conqueror in the isthmian games was crowned with a garland of pine, afterwards with parsley, and now again with pine. lucanius, praxiteles. this question was started, why the isthmian garland was made of pine. we were then at supper in corinth, in the time of the isthmian games, with lucanius the chief priest. praxiteles the commentator brought this fable for a reason; it is said that the body of melicertes was found fixed to a pine-tree by the sea; and not far from megara, there is a place called the race of a fair lady, through which the megarians say that ino, with her son melicertes in her arms, ran to the sea. and when many put forth the common opinion, that the pine-tree garland peculiarly belongs to neptune, lucanius added that it is sacred to bacchus too, but yet, for all that, it might also be appropriated to the honor of melicertes; this started the question, why the ancients dedicated the pine to neptune and bacchus. as for my part, it did not seem incongruous to me, for both the gods seem to preside over the moist and generative principle; and almost all the greeks sacrifice to neptune the nourisher of plants, and to bacchus the preserver of trees. besides, it may be said that the pine peculiarly agrees to neptune, not, as apollodorus thinks, because it grows by the seaside, or because it loves a bleak place (for some give this reason), but because it is used in building ships; for it together with the like trees, as fir and cypress, affords the best and the lightest timber, and likewise pitch and rosin, without which the compacted planks would be altogether unserviceable at sea. to bacchus they dedicate the pine, because it seasons wine, for among the pines they say the sweetest and most delicious grapes grow. the cause of this theophrastus thinks to be the heat of the soil; for pines grow most in chalky grounds. now chalk is hot, and therefore must very much conduce to the concoction of the wine; as a chalky spring affords the lightest and sweetest water; and if chalk is mixed with corn, by its heat it makes the grains swell, and considerably increases the heap. besides, it is probable that the vine itself is bettered by the pine, for that contains several things which are good to preserve wine. all cover the insides of wine casks with rosin, and many mix rosin with wine, as the euboeans in greece, and in italy those that live about the river po. from the parts of gaul about vienna there is a sort of pitched wine brought, which the romans value very much; for such things mixed with it do not only give it a good flavor, but make the wine generous, taking away by their gentle heat all the crude, watery, and undigested particles. when i had said thus much, a rhetorician in the company, a man well read in all sorts of polite learning, cried out: good gods! was it not but the other day that the isthmian garland began to be made of pine? and was not the crown anciently of twined parsley? i am sure in a certain comedy a covetous man is brought in speaking thus:- the isthmian garland i will sell as cheap as common wreaths of parsley may be sold. and timaeus the historian says that, when the corinthians were marching to fight the carthaginians in the defence of sicily, some persons carrying parsley met them, and when several looked upon this as a bad omen,--because parsley is accounted unlucky, and those that are dangerously sick we usually say have need of parsley,--timoleon encouraged them by putting them in mind of the isthmian parsley garland with which the corinthians used to crown the conquerors. and besides, the admiral-ship of antigonus's navy, having by chance some parsley growing on its poop, was called isthmia. besides, a certain obscure epigram upon an earthen vessel stopped with parsley intimates the same thing. it runs thus:- the grecian earth, now hardened by the flame, holds in its hollow belly bacchus blood; and hath its mouth with isthmian branches stopped. sure, he continued, they never read these authors, who cry up the pine as anciently wreathed in the isthmian garlands, and would not have it some upstart intruder. the young men yielded presently to him, as being a man of various reading and very learned. but lucanius, with a smile looking upon me, cried out: good god! here's a deal of learning. but others have taken advantage of our ignorance and unacquaintedness with such matters, and, on the contrary, persuaded us that the pine was the first garland, and that afterwards in honor of hercules the parsley was received from the nemean games, which in a little time prevailing, thrust out the pine, as if it were its right to be the wreath; but a little while after the pine recovered its ancient honor, and now flourishes in its glory. i was satisfied, and upon consideration found that i had run across a great many authorities for it. thus euphorion writes of melicertes, they mourned the youth, and him on pine boughs laid of which the isthmian victors' crowns are made. fate had not yet seized beauteous mene's son by smooth asopus; since whose fall the crown of parsley wreathed did grace the victor's brow. and callimachus is plainer and more express, when he makes hercules speak thus of parsley, this at isthmian sports to neptune's glory now shall be the crown; the pine shall be disused, which heretofore in corinth's fields successful victors wore. and besides, if i am not mistaken, in procles's history of the isthmian games i met with this passage; at first a pine garland crowned the conqueror, but when this game began to be reckoned amongst the sacred, then from the nemean solemnity the parsley was received. and this procles was one of xenocrates's fellow-students at the academy. question iv. concerning that expression in homer, [greek omitted] ("iliad," ix. 203.) niceratus, sosicles, antipater, plutarch. some at the table were of opinion that achilles talked nonsense when he bade patroclus "mix the wine stronger," adding this reason, for now i entertain my dearest friends. but niceratus a macedonian, my particular acquaintance, maintained that [greek omitted] did not signify pure but hot wine; as if it were derived from [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] (life-giving and boiling), and it were requisite at the coming of his friends to temper a fresh bowl, as every one of us in his offering at the altar pours out fresh wine. but sosicles the poet, remembering a saying of empedocles, that in the great universal change those things which before were [greek omitted], unmixed, should then be [greek omitted], affirmed that [greek omitted] there signified [greek omitted], well-tempered, and that achilles might with a great deal of reason bid patroclus provide well-tempered wine for the entertainment of his friends; and it was absurd (he said) to use [greek omitted] for [greek omitted] any more than [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], or [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], for the comparatives are very properly put for the positives. my friend antipater said that years were anciently called [greek omitted], and that the particle [greek omitted] in composition signified greatness; and therefore old wine, that had been kept for many years, was called by achilles [greek omitted]. i put them in mind that some imagine that [greek omitted], hot, is signified by [greek omitted], and that hotter means really faster, as when we command servants to move themselves more hotly or in hotter haste. but i must confess, your dispute is frivolous, since it is raised upon this supposition that if [greek omitted], signifies more pure wine, achilles's command would be absurd, as zoilus of amphipolis imagined. for first he did not consider that achilles saw phoenix and ulysses to be old men, who are not pleased with diluted wine, and upon that account forbade any mixture. besides, he having been chiron's scholar, and from him having learned the rules of diet, he considered that weaker and more diluted liquors were fittest for those bodies that lay at ease, and were not employed in their customary exercise or labor. thus with the other provender he gave his horses smallage, and this upon very good reason; for horses that lie still grow sore in their feet, and smallage is the best remedy in the world against that. and you will not find smallage or anything of the same nature given to any other horses in the whole "iliad." thus achilles, being experienced in physic, provided suitable provender for his horses, and used the lightest diet himself, as the fittest whilst he lay at ease. but those that had been wearied all day in fight he did not think convenient to treat like those that had lain at ease, but commanded more pure and stronger wine to be prepared. besides, achilles doth not appear to be naturally addicted to drinking, but he was of a haughty, inexorable temper. no pleasant humor, no, soft mind he bore, but was all fire and rage. ("iliad," xx. 467.) and in another place very plainly homer says, that many a sleepless night he knew. ("iliad," ix. 325.) now little sleep cannot content those that drink strong liquors; and in his railing at agamemnon, the first ill name he gives him is drunkard, proposing his great drinking as the chiefest of his faults. and for these reasons it is likely that, when they came, he thought his usual mixture too weak and not convenient for them. question v. concerning those that invite many to a supper. plutarch, onesicrates, lamprias the elder. at my return from alexandria all my friends by turns treated me, inviting all such too as were any way acquainted, so that our meetings were usually tumultuous and suddenly dissolved; which disorders gave occasion to discourses concerning the inconveniences that attend such crowded entertainments. but when onesicrates the physician in his turn invited only the most familiar acquaintance, and men of the most agreeable temper, i thought that what plato says concerning the increase of cities might be applied to entertainments. for there is a certain number which an entertainment may receive, and still be an entertainment; but if it exceeds that, so that by reason of the number there cannot be a mutual conversation amongst all, if they cannot know one another nor partake of the same jollity, it ceaseth to be such. for we should not want messengers there, as in a camp, or boatswains, as in a galley; but we ourselves should immediately converse with one another. as in a dance, so in an entertainment, the last man should be placed within hearing of the first. as i was speaking, my grandfather lamprias cried out: then it seems there is need of temperance not only in our feasts, but also in our invitations. for methinks there is even an excess in kindness, when we pass by none of our friends, but draw them all in, as to see a sight or hear a play. and i think, it is not so great a disgrace for the entertainer not to have bread or wine enough for his, guests, as not to have room enough, with which he ought always to be provided, not only for invited guests, strangers and chance visitants. for suppose he hath not wine and bread enough, it may be imputed either to the carelessness or dishonesty of his servants; but the want of room must be imputed to the imprudence of the inviter. hesiod is very much admired for beginning thus, a vast chaos first was made. (hesiod, "theogony," 116.) for it was necessary that there should be first a place and room provided for the beings that were afterward to be produced; and not as was seen yesterday at my son's entertainment, according to anaxagoras's saying, all lay jumbled together. but suppose a man hath room and provision enough, yet a large company itself is to be avoided for its own sake, as hindering all familiarity and conversation; and it is more tolerable to let the company have no wine, than to exclude all converse from a feast. and therefore theophrastus jocularly called the barbers' shops feasts without wine; because those that sit there usually prattle and discourse. but those that invite a crowd at once deprive all of free communication of discourse, or rather make them divide into cabals, so that two or three privately talk together, and neither know nor look on those that sit, as it were, half a mile distant. some took this way to valiant ajax's tent, and some the other to achilles' went. ("iliad," xi. 7.) and therefore some rich men are foolishly profuse, who build rooms big enough for thirty tables or more at once; for such a preparation certainly is for unsociable and unfriendly entertainments, and such as are fit for a panegyriarch rather than a symposiarch to preside over. but this may be pardoned in those; for wealth would not he wealth, it would be really blind and imprisoned, unless it had witnesses, as tragedies would be devoid of spectators. let us entertain few and often, and make that a remedy against having a crowd at once. for those that invite but seldom are forced to have all their friends, and all that upon any account they are acquainted with together; but those that invite frequently, and but three or four, render their entertainments like little barks, light and nimble. besides, the very reason why we ask friends teaches us to select some out of the number. for as when we are in want we do not call all together, but only those that can best afford, help in that particular case,--when we would be advised, the wiser part; and when we are to have a trial, the best pleaders; and when we are to go a journey, those that can live pleasantly and are at leisure,--thus to our entertainments we should only call those that are at the present agreeable. agreeable, for instance, to a prince's entertainment will be the magistrates, if they are his friends, or chiefest of the city; to marriage or birthday feasts, all their kindred, and such as are under the protection of the same jupiter the guardian of consanguinity; and to such feasts and merry-makings as this those are to be invited whose tempers are most suitable to the occasion. when we offer sacrifice to one god, we do not worship all the others that belong to the same temple and altar at the same time; but suppose we have three bowls, out of the first we pour oblations to some, out of the second to others and out of the third to the rest, and none of the gods take distaste. and in this a company of friends may be likened to the company of gods; none takes distaste at the order of the invitation, if it be prudently managed and every one allowed a turn. question vi. what is the reason that the same room which at the beginning of a supper seems too narrow appears wide enough afterwards. after this it was presently asked, why the room which at the beginning of supper seems too narrow for the guest is afterwards wide enough; when the contrary is most likely, after they are filled with the supper. some said the posture of our sitting was the cause; for they sit when they eat, with their full breadth to the table, that they may command it with their right hand; but after they have supped, they sit more sideways, and make an acute figure with their bodies, and do not touch the place according to the superficies, if i may so say, but the line. now as cockal bones do not take up as much room when they fall upon one end as when they fall flat, so every one of us at the beginning sitting broadwise, and with a full face to the table, afterwards changes the figure, and turns his depth, not his breadth, to the board. some attribute it to the beds whereon we sat, for those when pressed stretch; as strait shoes after a little wearing have their pores widened, and grow fit for--sometimes too big for--the foot. an old man in the company merrily said, that the same feast had two very different presidents and directors; in the beginning, hunger, that is not in the least skilled in ordering and disposing, but afterward bacchus, whom all acknowledge to be the best orderer of an army in the world. as therefore epaminondas, when the unskilful captains had led their forces into narrow disadvantageous straits, relieved the phalanx that was fallen foul on itself and all in disorder, and brought it into good rank and file again; thus we in the beginning, being like greedy hounds confused and disordered by hunger, the god (hence named the looser and the dancesetter) settles us in a friendly and agreeable order. question vii. concerning those that are said to bewitch. metrius florus, plutarch, soclarus, patrocles, caius. a discourse happening at supper concerning those that are said to bewitch or have a bewitching eye, most of the company looked upon it as a whim, and laughed at it. but metrius florus, who then gave us a supper, said that the strange events wonderfully confirmed the report; and because we cannot give a reason for the thing, therefore to disbelieve the relation was absurd, since there are a thousand things which evidently are, the reasons of which we cannot readily assign. and, in short, he that requires everything should be probable destroys all wonder and admiration; and where the cause is not obvious, there we begin to doubt, that is, to philosophize. so that they who disbelieve all wonderful relations do in some measure take away all philosophy. the cause why anything is so, reason must find out; but that a thing is so, testimony is a sufficient evidence; and we have a thousand instances of this sort attested. we know that some men by looking upon young children hurt them very much, their weak and soft temperature being wrought upon and perverted, whilst those that are strong and firm are not so liable to be wrought upon. and phylarchus tells us that the thibians, the old inhabitants about pontus, were destructive not only to little children, but to some also of riper years; for those upon whom they looked or breathed, or to whom they spake, would languish and grow sick. and this, likely, those of other countries perceived who bought slaves there. but perhaps this is not so much to be wondered at, for in touching and handling there is some apparent principle and cause of the effect. and as when you mix other birds' wings with the eagles', the plumes waste and suddenly consume; so there is no reason to the contrary, but that one man's touch may be good and advantageous, and another's hurtful and destructive. but that some, by being barely looked upon, are extremely prejudiced is certain; though the stories are disbelieved, because the reason is hard to be given. true, said i, but methinks there is some small track to the cause of this effect, if you come to the effluvia of bodies. for smell, voice, breath, and the like, are effluvia from animal bodies, and material parts that move the senses, which are wrought upon by their impulse. now it is very likely that such effluvia must continually part from animals, by reason of their heat and motion; for by that the spirits are agitated, and the body, being struck by those, must continually send forth effluvia. and it is probable that these pass chiefly through the eye. for the sight, being very vigorous and active, together with the spirit upon which it depends, sends forth a strange fiery power; so that by it men act and suffer very much, and are always proportionably pleased or displeased, according as the visible objects are agreeable or not. love, that greatest and most violent passion of the soul, takes its beginning from the eye; so that a lover, when he looks upon the fair, flows out as it were, and seems to mix with her. and therefore why should any one, that believes men can be affected and prejudiced by the sight, imagine that they cannot act and hurt is well? for the mutual looks of mature beauties, and that which comes from the eye, whether light or a stream of spirits, melt and dissolve the lovers with a pleasing pain, which they call the bittersweet of love. for neither by touching or hearing the voice of their beloved are they so much wounded and wrought upon, as by looking and being looked upon again. there is such a communication, such a flame raised by one glance, that those must be altogether unacquainted with love that wonder at the median naphtha, that takes fire at a distance from the flame. for the glances of a fair one, though at a great distance, quickly kindle a fire in the lover's breast. besides every body knows the remedy for the jaundice; if they look upon the bird called charadrios they are cured. for that animal seems to be of that temperature and nature as to receive and draw away the disease, that like a stream flows out through the eyes; so that the charadrios will not look on one that hath the jaundice; he cannot endure it, but turns away his head and shuts his eyes, not envying (as some imagine) the cure he performs, but being really hurt by the effluvia of the patient. and of all diseases, soreness of the eyes is the most infectious; so strong and vigorous is the sight, and so easily does it cause infirmities in another. very right, said patrocles, and you reason well as to changes wrought upon the body; but as to the soul, which in some measure exercises the power of witchcraft, how can this cause any disturbance by the eye? sir, i replied, do not you consider that the soul, when affected, works upon the body? ideas of love excite lust, and rage often blinds dogs as they fight with wild beasts. sorrow, covetousness, or jealousy makes us change color, and destroys the habit of the body; and envy more than any passion, when fixed in the soul, fills the body full of ill humors, and makes it pale and ugly; which deformities good painters in their pictures of envy endeavor to represent. now, when men thus perverted by envy fix their eyes upon another, and these, being nearest to the soul, easily draw the venom from it, and send out as it were poisoned darts, it is no wonder, in my mind, if he that is looked upon is hurt. thus the biting of a dog when mad is most dangerous; and then the seed of a man is most prolific, when he embraces one that he loves; and in general the affections of the mind strengthen and invigorate the powers of the body. and therefore people imagine that those amulets that are preservative against witchcraft are likewise good and efficacious against envy; the sight by the strangeness of the spectacle being diverted, so that it cannot make so strong an impression upon the patient. this, florus, is what i can say; and pray sir, accept it as my club for this entertainment. well, said soclarus, but let us try whether the money be all good or no; for, in my mind some of it seems brass. but if we admit the general report about these matters to be true, you know very well that it is commonly supposed that some have friends, acquaintance, and even fathers, that have such evil eyes; so that the mothers will not show their children to them, nor for a long time suffer them to be looked upon by such; and how can the effects wrought by these proceed from envy? but what, for god's sake, wilt thou say to those that are reported to bewitch themselves?--for i am sure you have heard of such, or at least read these lines:- curls once on eutel's head in order stood; but when he viewed his figure in a flood, he overlooked himself, and now they fall... for they say that this eutelidas, appearing very delicate and beauteous to himself, was affected with that sight and grew sick upon it, and lost his beauty and his health. now, pray sir, what reason can you find for these wonderful effects? at any other time, i replied, i question not but i shall give you full satisfaction. but now, sir, after such a large pot as you have seen me take, i boldly affirm, that all passions which have been fixed in the soul a long time raise ill humors in the body, which by continuance growing strong enough to be, as it were, a new nature, being excited by any intervening accident, force men, though unwilling, to their accustomed passions. consider the timorous, they are afraid even of those things that preserve them. consider the pettish, they are angry with their best and dearest friends. consider the amorous and lascivious, in the height of their fury they dare violate a vestal. for custom is very powerful to draw the temper of the body to anything that is suitable to it; and he that is apt to fall will stumble at everything that lies in his way. so it is no wonder that those that have raised in themselves an envious and bewitching habit, if according to the peculiarity of their passion they are carried on to suitable effects; for when they are once moved, they do that which the nature of the thing, not which their will, leads them to. for as a sphere must necessarily move spherically, and a cylinder cylindrically, according to the difference of their figures; thus his disposition makes an envious man move enviously to all things; and it is likely they should chiefly hurt their most familiar acquaintance and best beloved. and that fine fellow eutelidas you mentioned, and the rest that are said to overlook themselves, may be easily and upon good rational grounds accounted for; for, according to hippocrates, a good habit of body, when at height, is easily perverted, and bodies come to their full maturity do not stand at a stay there, but fall and waste down to the contrary extreme. and therefore when they are in very good plight, and see themselves look much better than they expected, they gaze and wonder; but then their body being nigh to change, and their habit declining into a worse condition, they overlook themselves. and this is done when the effluvia are stopped and reflected by the water rather than by any other reflecting body; for this exhales upon them whilst they look upon it, so that the very same particles which would hurt others must hurt themselves. and this perchance often happens to young children, and the cause of their diseases is falsely attributed to those that look upon them. when i had done, caius, florus's son-in-law, said: then it seems you make no more reckoning or account of democritus's images, than of those of aegium or megara; for he delivers that the envious send out images which are not altogether void of sense or force, but full of the disturbing and poisonous qualities of those from whom they come. now these being mixed with such qualities, and remaining with and abiding in those persons that injure them both in mind and body; for this, i think, is the meaning of that philosopher, a man in his opinion and expressions admirable and divine. very true, said i, and i wonder that you did not observe that i took nothing from those effluvia and images but life and will; lest you should imagine that, now it is almost midnight, i brought in spectres and wise and understanding images to terrify and fright you; but in the morning, if you please, we will talk of those things. question viii. why homer calls the apple-tree [greek omitted], and empedocles calls apples [greek omitted]. plutarch, trypho, certain grammarians, lamprias the elder. as we were at supper in chaeronea, and had all sorts of fruit at the table, one of the company chanced to speak these verses, the fig-trees sweet, the apple-trees that bear fair fruit, and olives green through all the year. ("odyssey," vii. 115.) upon this there arose a question, why the poet calls apple-trees particularly [greek omitted], bearing fair fruit. trypho the physician said that this epithet was given comparatively in respect of the tree, because, it being small and no goodly tree to look upon, bears fair and large fruit. somebody else said, that the particular excellencies scattered amongst all other fruits are united in this alone. as to the touch, it is smooth and polished, so that it makes the hand that toucheth it odorous without defiling it; it is sweet to the taste, and to the smell and sight very pleasing; and therefore there is reason that it should be duly praised, as being that which congregates and allures all the senses together. this discourse pleased us indifferently well. but whereas empedocles has thus written, why pomegranates so late do thrive, and apples give a lovely show [greek omitted]; i guess the epithet to be given to pomegranates, because that at the end of autumn, and when the heats begin to decrease, they ripen the fruit; for the sun will not suffer the weak and thin moisture to thicken into a consistence until the air begins to wax colder; therefore, says theophrastus, this only tree ripens its fruit best and soonest in the shade. but in what sense the philosopher gives the epithet [greek omitted], to apples, i much question, since it is not his custom to try to adorn his verses with varieties of epithets, as with gay and florid colors. but in every verse he gives some description of the substance and virtue of the subject which he treats; as when he calls the body encircling the soul the mortal-surrounding earth; as also when he calls the air cloud-gathering, and the liver much blooded. when now i had said these things myself, certain grammarians affirmed, that those apples were called [greek omitted] by reason of their vigor and florid manner of growing; for to blossom and flourish after an extraordinary manner is by the poets expressed by the word [greek omitted]. in this sense, antimachus calls the city of cadmeans flourishing with fruit; and aratus, speaking of the dog-star sirius, says that he to some gave strength, but others did ruin, their bloom; calling the greenness of the trees and the blossoming of the fruit by the name of [greek omitted]. nay, there are some of the greeks also who sacrifice to bacchus surnamed [greek omitted]. and therefore, seeing the verdure and floridness chiefly recommend this fruit, philosophers call it [greek omitted]. but lamprias our grandfather used to say that the word [greek omitted] did not only denote excess and vehemency, but external and supernal; thus we call the upper frame of a door [greek omitted], and the upper portion of the house [greek omitted]; and the poet calls the outward parts of the victim the upper-flesh, as he calls the entrails the inner-flesh. let us see therefore, says he, whether empedocles did not make use of this epithet in this sense, seeing that other fruits are encompassed with an outward rind and with certain coatings and membranes, but the only cortex rind that the apple has is a glutinous and smooth tunic (or core) containing the seed, so that the part which can be eaten, and lies without, was properly called [greek omitted], that is over or outside of the husk. question ix. what is the reason that the fig-tree, being itself of a very sharp and bitter taste, bears so sweet fruit? lamprias the elder, and others. this discourse ended, the next question was about fig-trees, how so luscious and sweet fruit should come from so bitter a tree. for the leaf from its roughness is called [greek omitted]. the wood of it is full of sap, and as it burns sends forth a very biting smoke; and the ashes of it thoroughly burnt are so acrimonious, that they make a lye extremely detersive. and, which is very strange, all other trees that bud and bear fruit put forth blossoms too; but the fig-tree never blossoms. and if (as some say) it is never thunderstruck, that likewise may be attributed to the sharp juices and bad temper of the stock; for such things are as secure from thunder as the skin of a sea calf or hyena. then said the old man: it is no wonder that when all the sweetness is separated and employed in making the fruit, that which is left should be bitter and unsavory. for as the liver, all the gall being gathered in its proper place, is itself very sweet; so the fig-tree having parted with its oil and sweet particles to the fruit, reserves no portion for itself. for that this tree hath some good juice, i gather from what they say of rue, which growing under a fig-tree is sweeter than usual, and hath a sweeter and more palatable juice, as if it drew some sweet particles from the tree which mollified its offensive and corroding qualities; unless perhaps, on the contrary, the fig-tree robbing it of its nourishment draws likewise some of its sharpness and bitterness away. question x. what are those that are said to be [greek omitted], and why homer calls salt divine? florus, apollophanes, plutarch, philinus. florus, when we were entertained at his house, put this question, what are those in the proverb who are said to be about the salt and cummin? apollophanes the grammarian presently satisfied him, saying, by that proverb were meant intimate acquaintance, who could sup together on salt and cummin. thence we proceeded to inquire how salt should come to be so much honored as it is; for homer plainly says, and after that he strewed his salt divine ("iliad," ix. 214.) and plato delivers that by man's laws salt is to be accounted most sacred. and this difficulty was increased by the customs of the egyptian priests, who professing chastity eat no salt, no, not so much as in their bread. for if it be divine and holy, why should they avoid it? florus bade us not mind the egyptians, but speak according to the grecian custom on the present subject. but i replied: the egyptians are not contrary to the greeks in this matter; for the profession of purity and chastity forbids getting children, laughter, wine, and many other very commendable and lawful things; and perhaps these priests avoid salt, as being, according to some men's opinions, by its heat provocative and apt to raise lust. or they refuse it as the most pleasant of all sauces, for indeed salt may be called the sauce of all sauces; and therefore some call salt [greek omitted]; because it makes food, which is necessary for life, to be relishing and pleasant. what then, said florus, shall we say that salt is termed divine for that reason? indeed that is very considerable, for men for the most part deify those common things that are exceeding useful to their necessities and wants, as water, light, the seasons of the year; and the earth they do not only think to be divine, but a very god. now salt is as useful as either of these, protecting in a way the food as it comes into the body, and making it palatable and agreeable to the appetite. but consider farther, whether its power of preserving dead bodies from rotting a long time be not a divine property, and opposite to death; since it preserves part, and will not suffer that which is mortal wholly to be destroyed. but as the soul, which is our diviner part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the composure from dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies, and imitating the work of the soul, stops those parts that were falling to corruption, binds and confines them, and so makes them keep their union and agreement with one another. and therefore some of the stoics say, that swine's flesh then deserves the name of a body, when the soul like salt spreads through it and keeps the parts from dissolution. besides, you know that we account lightning to be sacred and divine, because the bodies that are thunderstruck do not rot for a long time; what wonder is it then, that the ancients called salt as well as lightning divine, since it hath the same property and power? i making no reply, philinus subjoined: do you not think that that which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing god is the principle of all things? and i assenting, he continued: salt, in the opinion of some men, for instance the egyptians you mentioned, is very operative that way; and those that breed dogs, when they find their bitches not apt to be hot, give them salt and seasoned flesh, to excite and arouse their sleeping lechery and vigor. besides, the ships that carry salt breed abundance of mice; the females, as some imagine, conceiving without the help of the males, only by licking the salt. but it is most probable that the salt raiseth an itching in animals, and so makes them salacious and eager to couple. and perhaps for the same reason they call a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is apt to move and entice, [greek omitted], saltish. and i think the poets had a respect to this generative power of salt in their fable of venus springing from the sea. and it may be farther observed, that they make all the sea gods very fruitful, and give them large families. and besides, there are no land animals so fruitful as the sea ones; agreeable to which observation is that verse of empedocles, leading the foolish race of fruitful fish. book vi. timotheus the son of conon, sossius senecio, after a full enjoyment of luxurious campaign diet, being entertained by plato in his academy, at a neat, homely, and (as ion says) no surfeiting feast (such an one as is constantly attended by sound sleep, and by reason of the calm and pleasant state the body enjoys, rarely interrupted with dreams and apparitions), the next day, being sensible of the difference, said that those that supped with plato were well treated, even the day after the feast. for such a temper of a body not overcharged, but expedite and fitted for the ready execution of all its enterprises, is without all doubt a great help for the more comfortable passing away of the day. but there is another benefit not inferior to the former, which does usually accrue to those that sup with plato, namely, the recollection of those points that were debated at the table. for the remembrance of those pleasures which arise from meat and drink is ungenteel, and short-lived withal, and nothing but the remains of yesterday's smell. but the subjects of philosophical queries and discourses, being always fresh after they are imparted, are equally relished by all, as well by those that were absent as by those that were present at them; insomuch that learned men even now are as much partakers of socrates's feasts as those who really supped with him. but if things pertaining to the body had af discourse, but of the great variety of dishes, sauces, and other costly compositions that were prepared in the houses of callias and agatho. yet there is not the least mention made of any such things, though questionless they were as sumptuous as possible; but whatever things were treated of and learnedly discussed by their guests were left upon record and transmitted to posterity as precedents, not only for discoursing at table, but also for remembering the things that were handled at such meetings. question i. what is the reason that those that are fasting are more thirsty than hungry? plutarch and others. i present you with this sixth book of table discourses, wherein the first thing that cometh to be discussed is an inquiry into the reason why those that are fasting are more inclinable to drink than to eat. for the assertion carries in it a repugnancy to the standing rules of reason; forasmuch as the decayed stock of dry nourishment seems more naturally to call for its proper supplies. whereupon i told the company, that of those things whereof our bodies are composed, heat only--or, however, above all the rest--stands in continual need of such accessions; for the truth of which this may be urged as a convincing argument: neither air, water, nor earth requires any matter to feed upon, or devours whatsoever lies next it; but fire alone doth. hence it comes to pass that young men, by reason of their greater share of natural heat, have commonly greater stomachs than old men; whereas on the contrary, old men can endure fasting much better, for this only reason, because their natural heat is grown weaker and decayed. just so we see it fares with bloodless animals, which by reason of the want of heat require very little nourishment. besides, every one of us finds by experience, that bodily exercises, clamors, and whatever other actions by violent motion occasion heat, commonly sharpen our stomachs and get us a better appetite. now, as i take it, the most natural and principal nourishment of heat is moisture, as it evidently appears from flames, which increase by the pouring in of oil, and from ashes, which are of the driest things in nature; for after the humidity is consumed by the fire, the terrene and grosser parts remain without any moisture at all. add to these, that fire separates and dissolves bodies by extracting that moisture which should keep them close and compact. therefore, when we are fasting, the heat first of all forces the moisture out of the relics of the nourishment that remain in the body, and then, pursuing the other humid parts, preys upon the natural moisture of the flesh itself. hence the body like clay becoming dry, wants drink more than meat; till the heat, receiving strength and vigor by our drinking, excites an appetite for more substantial food. question ii. whether want of nourishment causeth hunger and thirst or the change in the figures of the pores. philo, plutarch. after these things were spoke, philo the physician started the first question, asserting that thirst did not arise from the want of nourishment, but from the different transfiguration of certain passages. for, says he, this may be made evident, partly from what we see happens to those that thirst in the night, who, if sleep chance to steal upon them, though they did not drink before, are yet rid of their thirst; partly from persons in a fever, who, as soon as the disease abates or is removed, thirst no more. nay, a great many men, after they have bathed or vomited, perceive presently that their thirst is gone; yet none of these add anything to their former moisture, but only the transfiguration of the pores causeth a new order and disposition. and this is more evident in hunger; for many sick persons, at the same time when they have the greatest need of meat, have no stomach. others, after they have filled their bellies, have the same stomachs, and their appetites are rather increased than abated. there are a great many besides who loathe all sorts of diet, yet by taking of a pickled olive or caper recover and confirm their lost appetites. this doth clearly evince, that hunger proceeds from some change in the pores, and not from any want of sustenance, forasmuch as such kind of food lessens the defect by adding food, but increases the hunger; and the pleasing relish and poignancy of such pickles, by binding and straitening the mouth of the ventricle, and again by opening and loosening of it, beget in it a convenient disposition to receive meat, which we call by the name of appetite. i must confess this discourse seemed to carry in it some shadow of reason and probability; but in the main it is directly repugnant to the chief end of nature, to which appetite directs every animal. for that makes it desire a supply of what they stand in need of, and avoid a defect of their proper food. for to deny what especially makes a living creature differ from an inanimate object as given to us for our preservation and conservation (being as it were the receiver of what supplements and agrees with the nature of our body) is the argument of one who takes no account of natural law, especially when he would add that the characteristic proceeds from the great or small size of the pores. besides, it is absurd to think that a body through the want of natural heat should be chilled, and should not in like manner hunger and thirst through the want of natural moisture and nourishment. and yet this is more absurd, that nature when overcharged should desire to disburden herself, and yet should not require to be supplied on account of emptiness, but on account of some condition or other, i know not what. moreover, these needs and supplies in relation to animals have some resemblance to those we see in husbandry. there are a great many like qualities and like provisions on both sides. for in a drought we water our grounds, and in case of excessive heat, we frequently make use of moderate coolers; and when our fruits are too cold, we endeavor to preserve and cherish them, by covering and making fences about them. and for such things as are out of the reach of human power, we implore the assistance of the gods, that is, to send us softening dews, and sunshines qualified with moderate winds; that so nature, being always desirous of a due mixture, may have her wants supplied. and for this reason i presume it was that nourishment is called [greek omitted] (from [greek omitted]), because it observes and preserves nature. now nature is preserved in plants, which are destitute of sense, by the favorable influence of the circumambient air (as empedocles says), moistening them in such a measure as is most agreeable to their nature. but as for us men, our appetites prompt us on to the chase and pursuance of whatsoever is wanting to our natural temperament. but now let us pass to the examination of the truth of the arguments that seem to favor the contrary opinion. and for the first, i suppose that those meats that are palatable and of a quick and sharp taste do not beget in us an appetite, but rather bite and fret those parts that receive the nourishment, as we find that scratching the skin causes itching. and supposing we should grant that this affection or disposition is the very thing which we call the appetite, it is probable that, by the operation of such kind of food as this, the nourishment may be made small, and so much of it as is convenient for nature severed from the rest, so that the indigency proceeds not from the transmutation, but from the evacuation and purgation of the passages. for sharp, tart, and salt things grate the inward matter, and by dispersing of it cause digestion, so that by the concoctions of the old there may arise an appetite for new. nor does the cessation of thirst after bathing spring from the different position of the passages, but from a new supply of moisture received into the flesh, and conveyed from thence to them also. and vomiting, by throwing off whatever is disagreeable to nature, puts her in a capacity of enjoying what is most suitable for her. for thirst does not call for a superfluity of moisture, but only for so much as sufficeth nature; and therefore, though a man had plenty of disagreeable and unnatural moisture, yet he wants still, for that stops the course of the natural, which nature is desirous of, and hinders a due mixture and temperament, till it be cast out and the pores receive what is most proper and convenient for them. moreover, a fever forces all the moisture downward; and the middle parts being in combustion, it all retires thither, and there is shut up and forcibly detained. and therefore it is usual with a great many to vomit, by reason of the density of the inward parts squeezing out the moisture, and likewise to thirst, by reason of the poor and dry state the rest of the body is in. but after the violence of the distemper is once abated, and the raging heat hath left the middle parts, the moisture begins to disperse itself again; and according to its natural motion, by a speedy conveyance into all the parts, it refreshes the entrails, softens and makes tender the dry and parched flesh. very often also it causes sweat, and then the defect which occasioned thirst ceases; for the moisture leaving that part of the body wherein it was forcibly detained, and out of which it hardly made an escape, retires to the place where it is wanted. for as it fares with a garden wherein there is a large well,--if nobody draw thereof and water it, the herbs must needs wither and die,--so it fares with a body; if all the moisture be contracted into one part, it is no wonder if the rest be in want and dry, till it is diffused again over the other limbs. just so it happens to persons in a fever, after the heat of the disease is over, and likewise to those who go to sleep thirsty. for in these, sleep draws the moisture to the middle parts, and equally distributes it amongst the rest, satisfying them all. but, i pray, what kind of transfiguration of the passages is this which causes hunger and thirst? for my part, i know no other distinction of the pores but in respect of their number or that some of them are shut, others open. as for those that are shut, they can neither receive meat nor drink; and as for those that are open, they make an empty space, which is nothing but a want of that which nature requires. thus, sir, when men dye cloth, the liquor in which they dip it hath very sharp and abstersive particles; which, consuming and scouring off all the matter that filled the pores, make the cloth more apt to receive the dye, because its pores are empty and want something to fill them up. question iii. what is the reason that hunger is allayed by drinking, but thirst increased by eating? the host, plutarch, and others. after we had gone thus far, the master of the feast told the company that the former points were reasonably well discussed; and waiving at present the discourse concerning the evacuation and repletion of the pores, he requested us to fall upon another question, that is, how it comes to pass that hunger is stayed by drinking, when, on the contrary, thirst is more violent after eating. those who assign the reason to be in the pores seem with a great deal of ease and probability, though not with so much truth, to explain the thing. for seeing the pores in all bodies are of different sorts and sizes, the more capacious receive both dry and humid nourishment, the lesser take in drink, not meat; but the vacuity of the former causes hunger, of the latter thirst. hence it is that men that thirst are never better after they have eaten, the pores by reason of their straitness denying admittance to grosser nourishment, and the want of suitable supply still remaining. but after hungry men have drunk, the moisture enters the greater pores, fills the empty spaces, and in part assuages the violence of the hunger. of this effect, said i, i do not in the least doubt, but i do not approve of the reason they give for it. for if any one should admit these pores (which some are so unreasonably fond of) to be in the flesh, he must needs make it a very soft, loose, flabby substance; and that the same parts do not receive the meat and drink, but that they run through different canals and strainers in them, seems to me to be a very strange and unaccountable opinion. for the moisture mixes with the dry food, and by the assistance of the natural heat and spirits cuts the nourishment far smaller than any cleaver or chopping-knife, to the end that every part of it may be exactly fitted to each part of the body, not applied, as they would have it, to little vessels and pores, but united and incorporated with the whole substance. and unless the thing were explained after this manner, the hardest knot in the question would still remain unsolved. for a man that has a thirst upon him, supposing he eats and doth not drink, is so far from quenching, that he does highly increase it. this point is yet undiscussed. but mark, said i, whether the positions on my side be clear and evident or not. in the first place, we take it for granted that moisture is wasted and destroyed by heat, that the drier parts of the nourishment qualified and softened by moisture, are diffused and fly away in vapors. secondly, we must by no means suppose that all hunger is a total privation of dry, and thirst of humid nutriment, but only a moderate one, and such as is sufficient to cause the one or the other; for whoever are wholly deprived of either of these, they neither hunger nor thirst, but die instantly. these things being laid down as a foundation, it will be no hard matter to find out the cause. for thirst is increased by eating for this reason, because that meat by its natural siccity contracts and destroys all that small quantity of moisture which remained scattered here and there through the body; just as happens in things obvious to our senses; we see the earth, dust, and the like presently suck in the moisture that is mixed with them. now, on the contrary, drink must of necessity assuage hunger; for the moisture watering and diffusing itself through the dry and parched relics of the meat we ate last, by turning them into thin juices, conveys them through the whole body, and succors the indigent parts. and therefore with very good reason erasistratus called moisture the vehicle of the meat; for as soon as this is mixed with things which by reason of their dryness, or some other quality, are slow and heavy, it raises them up and carries them aloft. moreover, several men, when they have drunk nothing at all, but only washed themselves, all on a sudden are freed from a very violent hunger, because the extrinsic moisture entering the pores makes the meat within more succulent and of a more nourishing nature, so that the heat and fury of the hunger declines and abates; and therefore a great many of those who have a mind to starve themselves to death live a long time only by drinking water; that is, as long as the siccity does not quite consume whatever may be united to and nourish the body. question iv. what is the reason that a bucket of water drawn out of a well, if it stands all night in the air that is in the well, is, more cold in the morning than the rest of the water? a guest, plutarch, and others. one of the strangers at the the table, who took wonderful great delight in drinking of cold water, had some brought to him by the servants, cooled after this manner; they had hung in the well a bucket full of the same water, so that it could not touch the sides of the well, and there let it remain, all night: the next day, when it was brought to table, it was colder than the water that was newdrawn. now this gentleman was an indifferent good scholar, and therefore told the company that he had learned this from aristotle, who gives the reason of it. the reason which he assigned was this. all water, when it hath been once hot, is afterwards more cold; as that which is prepared for kings, when it hath boiled a good while upon the fire, is afterwards put into a vessel set round with snow, and so made colder; just as we find our bodies more cool after we have bathed, because the body, after a short relaxation from heat, is rarefied and more porous, and therefore so much the more fitted to receive a larger quantity of air, which causes the alteration. therefore the water, when it is drawn out of the well, being first warmed in the air, grows presently cold. whereupon we began to commend the man very highly for his happy memory; but we called in question the pretended reason. for if the air wherein the vessel hangs be cold, how, i pray, does it heat the water? if hot, how does it afterwards make it cold? for it is absurd to say, that the same thing is affected by the same thing with contrary qualities, no difference at all intervening. while the gentleman held his peace, as not knowing what to say; there is no cause, said i, that we should raise any scruple concerning the nature of the air, forasmuch as we are ascertained by sense that it is cold, especially in the bottom of a well; and therefore we can never imagine that it should make the water hot. but i should rather judge this to be the reason: the cold air, though it cannot cool the great quantity of water which is in the well, yet can easily cool each part of it, separate from the whole. question v. what is the reason that pebble stones and leaden bullets thrown into the water make it more cold? a guest, plutarch, and others. i suppose you may remember that what aristotle says in his problems, of little stones and pieces of iron, how it hath been observed by some that being thrown into the water they temper and cool it. this is no more than barely asserted by him; but we will go farther and inquire into the reason of it, the discovery of which will be a matter of difficulty. yes, says i, it will so, and it is much if we hit upon it; for do but consider, first of all, do not you suppose that the air which comes in from without cools the water? but now air has a great deal more power and force, when it beats against stones and pieces of iron. for they do not, like brazen and earthen vessels, suffer it to pass through; but, by reason of their solid bulk, beat it back and reflect it into the water, so that upon all parts the cold works very strongly. and hence it comes to pass that rivers in the winter are colder than the sea, because the cold air has a power over them, which by reason of its depth it has not over the sea, where it is scattered without any reflection. but it is probable that for another reason thinner waters may be made colder by the air than thicker, because they are not so strong to resist its force. now whetstones and pebbles make the water thinner by drawing to them all the mud and other grosser substances that be mixed with it, that so by taking the strength from it may the more easily be wrought upon by the cold. but besides, lead is naturally cold, as that which, being dissolved in vinegar, makes the coldest of all poisons, called white-lead; and stones, by reason of their density, raise cold in the bottom of the water. for every stone is nothing else but a congealed lump of frozen earth, though some more or less than others; and therefore it is no absurdity to say that stones and lead, by reflecting the air, increase the coldness of the water. question vi what is the reason that men preserve snow by covering it with chaff and cloths? a guest, plutarch. then the stranger, after he had made a little pause, said: men in love are ambitious to be in company with their sweethearts; when that is denied them, they desire at least to talk of them. this is my case in relation to snow; and, because i cannot have it at present, i am desirous to learn the reason why it is commonly preserved by the hottest things. for, when covered with chaff and cloth that has never been at the fuller's, it is preserved a long time. now it is strange that the coldest things should be preserved by the hottest. yes, said i, it is a very strange thing, if true. but it is not so; and we cozen ourselves by presently concluding a thing to be hot if it have a faculty of causing heat, when as yet we see that the same garment causes heat in winter, and cold in summer. thus the nurse in the tragedy, in garments thin doth niobe's children fold, and sometimes heats and sometimes cools the babes. the germans indeed make use of clothes only against the cold, the ethiopians only against the heat; but they are useful to us upon both accounts. why therefore should we rather say the clothes are hot, because they cause heat, than cold, because they cause cold? nay, if we must be tried by sense, it will be found that they are more cold than hot. for at the first putting on of a coat it is cold, and so is our bed when we lie down; but afterwards they grow hot with the heat of our bodies, because they both keep in the heat and keep out the cold. indeed, feverish persons and others that have a violent heat upon them often change their clothes, because they perceive that fresh ones at the first putting on are much colder; but within a very little time their bodies make them as hot as the others. in like manner, as a garment heated makes us hot, so a covering cooled keeps snow cold. now that which causes this cold is the continual emanations of a subtile spirit the snow has in it, which spirit, as long as it remains in the snow, keeps it compact and close; but, after once it is gone, the snow melts and dissolves into water, and instantly loses its whiteness, occasioned by a mixture of this spirit with a frothy moisture. therefore at the same time, by the help of these clothes, the cold is kept in, and the external air is shut out, lest it should thaw the concrete body of the snow. the reason why they make use of cloth that has not yet been at the fuller's is this, because that in such cloth the hair and coarse flocks keep it off from pressing too hard upon the snow, and bruising it. so chaff lying lightly upon it does not dissolve the body of the snow, besides the chaff lies close and shuts out the warm air, and keeps in the natural cold of the snow. now that snow melts by the evaporating of this spirit, we are ascertained by sense; for when snow melts it raises a vapor. question vii. whether wine ought to be strained or not. niger, aristio. niger, a citizen of ours, was lately come from school, after he had spent some time under the discipline of a celebrated philosopher, but had absorbed nothing but those faults by which his master was odious to others, especially his custom of reproving and of carping at whatever upon any occasion chanced to be discussed in company. and therefore, when we were at supper one time at aristio's, not content to assume to himself a liberty to rail at all the rest of the preparations as too profuse and extravagant, he had a pique at the wine too, and said that it ought not to be brought to table strained, but that, observing hesiod's rule, we ought to drink it new out of the vessel. moreover, he added that this way of purging wine takes the strength from it, and robs it of its natural heat, which, when wine is poured out of one vessel into another, evaporates and dies. besides he would needs persuade us that it showed too much of a vain curiosity, effeminacy, and luxury, to convert what is wholesome into that which is palatable. for as the riotous, not the temperate, use to cut cocks and geld pigs, to make their flesh tender and delicious, even against nature; just so (if we may use a metaphor, says he) those that strain wine geld and emasculate it, whilst their squeamish stomachs will neither suffer them to drink pure wine, nor their intemperance to drink moderately. therefore they make use of this expedient, to the end that it may render the desire they have of drinking plentifully more excusable. so they take all the strength from the wine, leaving the palatableness still: as we use to deal with those with whose constitution cold water does not agree, to boil it for them. for they certainly take off all the strength from the wine, by straining of it. and this is a great argument, that the wine deads, grows flat, and loses its virtue, when it is separated from the lees, as from its root and stock; for the ancients for very good reason called wine lees, as we use to signify a man by his head or soul, as the principal part of him. so in greek, grape-gatherers are said [greek omitted], the word being derived from [greek omitted], which signifies lees; and homer in one place calls the fruit of the wine [greek omitted], and the wine itself high-colored and red,--not pale and yellow, such as aristio gives us to supper, after all the goodness is purged out of it. then aristio smiling presently replied: sir, the wine i bring to table does not look so pale and lifeless as you would have it: but it appears only in the cup to be mild and well qualified. but for your part, you would glut yourself with night wine, which raises melancholy vapors; and upon this account you cry out against purgation, which, by carrying off whatever might cause melancholy or load men's stomachs, and make them drunk or sick, makes it mild and pleasant to those that drink it, such as heroes (as homer tells us) were formerly wont to drink. and it was not dark wine which he called [greek omitted], but clear and transparent; for otherwise he would never have named brass [greek omitted], after characterizing it as man-exalting and resplendent. therefore as the wise anacharsis, discommending some things that the grecians enjoined, commended their coals, because they leave the smoke without doors, and bring the fire into the house; so you judicious men might blame me for some other reason than this. but what hurt, i pray, have i done to the wine, by taking from it a turbulent and noisome quality, and giving it a better taste, though a paler color? nor have i brought you wine to the table which, like a sword, hath lost its edge and vigorous relish, but such as is only purged of its dregs and filth. but you will say that wine not strained hath a great deal more strength. why so, my friend? one that is frantic and distracted has more strength than a man in his wits; but when, by the help of hellebore or some other fit diet, he is come to himself, that rage and frenzy leave him and quite vanish, and the true use of his reason and health of body presently comes into its place. in like manner, purging of wine takes from it all the strength that inflames and enrages the mind, and gives it instead thereof a mild and wholesome temper; and i think there is a great deal of difference between gaudiness and cleanliness. for women, while they paint, perfume, and adorn themselves with jewels and purple robes, are accounted gaudy and profuse; yet nobody will find fault with them for washing their faces, anointing themselves, or platting their hair. homer very neatly expresses the difference of these two habits, where he brings in juno dressing herself:- with sweet ambrosia first she washed her skin, and after did anoint herself with oil. ("iliad," xiv. 170.) so much was allowable, being no more than a careful cleanliness. but when she comes to call for her golden buttons, her curiously wrought earrings, and last of all puts on her bewitching girdle, this appears to be an extravagant and idle curiosity, and betrays too much of wantonness, which by no means becomes a married woman. just so they that sophisticate wine by mixing it with aloes, cinnamon, or saffron bring it to the table like a gorgeous-apparelled woman, and there prostitute it. but those that only take from it what is nasty and no way profitable do only purge it and improve it by their labor. otherwise you may find fault with all things whatsoever as vain and extravagant, beginning at the house you live in. as first, you may say, why is it plastered? why does it open especially on that side where it may have the best convenience for receiving the purest air, and the benefit of the evening sun? what is the reason that our cups are washed and made so clean that they shine and look bright? now if a cup ought to have nothing that is nasty or loathsome in it, ought that which is drunk out of the cup to be full of dregs and filth? what need is there for mentioning anything else? the making corn into bread is a continual cleansing; and yet what a great ado there is before it is effected! there is not only threshing, winnowing, sifting, and separating the bran, but there must be kneading the dough to soften all parts alike, and a continual cleansing and working of the mass till all the parts become edible alike. what absurdity is it then by straining to separate the lees, as it were the filth of the wine, especially since the cleansing is no chargeable or painful operation? question viii. what is the cause of bulimy or the greedy disease? plutarch, soclarus, cleomenes, and others. there is a certain sacrifice of very ancient institution, which the chief magistrate or archon performs always in the common-hall, and every private person in his own house. 'tis called the driving out of bulimy; for they whip out of doors some one of their servants with a bunch of willow rods, repeating these words, get out of doors, bulimy; and enter riches and health. therefore in my year there was a great concourse of people present at the sacrifice; and, after all the rites and ceremonies of the sacrifice were over, when we had seated ourselves again at the table, there was an inquiry made first of all into the signification of the word bulimy, then into the meaning of the words which are repeated when the servant is turned out of doors. but the principal dispute was concerning the nature of it, and all its circumstances. first, as for the word bulimy, it was agreed upon by all to denote a great and public famine, especially among us who use the aeolic dialect, putting [greek omitted] for [greek omitted]. for it was not called by the ancients [greek omitted] but [greek omitted], that is, [greek omitted], much hunger. we concluded that it was not the same with the disease called bubrostis, by an argument fetched out of metrodorus's ionics. for the said metrodorus informs us that the smyrnaeans, who were once aeolians, sacrificed to bubrostis a black bull cut into pieces with the skin on, and so burnt it. now, forasmuch as every species of hunger resembles a disease, but more particularly bulimy, which is occasioned by an unnatural disposition of the body, these two differ as riches and poverty, health and sickness. but as the word nauseate [greek omitted] first took its name from men who were sea-sick in a ship, and afterwards custom prevailed so far that the word was applied to all persons that were any way in like sort affected; so the word bulimy, rising at first from hence, was at last extended to a more large and comprehensive signification. what has been hitherto said was a general club of the opinions of all those who were at table. but after we began to inquire after the cause of this disease, the first thing that puzzled us was to find out the reason why bulimy seizes upon those that travel in the snow. as brutus, one time marching from dyrrachium to apollonia in a deep snow, was endangered of his life by bulimy, whilst none of those that carried the provisions for the army followed him; just when the man was ready to faint and die, some of his soldiers were forced to run to the walls of the enemies' city, and beg a piece of bread of the sentinels, by the eating of which he was presently refreshed; for which cause, after brutus had made himself master of the city, he treated all the inhabitants very mercifully. asses and horses are frequently troubled with bulimy, especially when they are laden with dry figs and apples; and, which is yet more strange, of all things that are eaten, bread chiefly refreshes not only men but beasts; so that, by taking a little quantity of bread, they regain their strength and go forward on their journey. after all were silent, i (who had observed that dull fellows and those of a less piercing judgment were satisfied with and did acquiesce in the reasons the ancients gave for bulimy, but to men of ingenuity and industry they only pointed out the way to a more clear discovery of the truth of the business) mentioned aristotle's opinion, who says, that extreme cold without causes extreme heat and consumption within; which, if it fall into the legs, makes them lazy and heavy, but if it come to the fountain of motion and respiration, occasions faintings and weakness. when i had said that, some of the company opposed it, others held with me. at length says soclarus: i like the beginning of this reason very well, for the bodies of travellers in a great snow must of necessity be surrounded and condensed with cold; but that from the heat within there should arise such a consumption as invades the principle of respiration, i can no way imagine. i rather think, says he, that abundance of heat penned up in the body consumes the nourishment, and that failing, the fire as it were goes out. here it comes to pass, that men troubled with this bulimy, when they are ready to starve with hunger, if they eat never so little meat, are presently refreshed. the reason is, because meat digested is like fuel for the heat to feed upon. but cleomenes the physician would have the word [greek omitted] (which signifies hunger) to be added to the making up of the word [greek omitted] without sufficient reason; as [greek omitted], to drink, is added to [greek omitted], to swallow; and [greek omitted] to incline, into [greek omitted] to raise the head. nor is bulimy, as it seems, a kind of hunger, but an affection in the stomach causing a faintness on account of the concourse of heat. therefore as things that have a good smell recall the spirits of those that are faint, so bread affects those that are almost overcome with a bulimy; not that they have any need of food (for the least piece of it restores them their strength), but the bread calls back their vigor and languishing spirits. now that bulimy is not hunger but a faintness, is manifest from all laboring beasts, which are seized with it very often through the smell of dry figs and apples; for a smell does not cause any want of food, but rather a pain and agitation in the stomach. these things seemed to be reasonably well urged; and yet it seemed that much might be said for the contrary opinion, and that it was possible enough to maintain that bulimy ariseth not from condensation but rarefication of the stomach. for the spirit which flows from the snow is nothing but the aether and finest fragment of the frozen substance, endued with a virtue of cutting and dividing not only the flesh, but also silver and brazen vessels; for we see that these are not able to keep in the snow, for it dissolves and evaporates, and glazes over the outmost superficies of the vessels with a thin dew, not unlike to ice, which this spirit leaves as it secretly passes through the pores. therefore this piercing spirit, like a flame, seizing upon those that travel in the snow, seems to burn their outsides, and like fire to enter and penetrate the flesh. hence it is that the flesh is more rarefied, and the heat is extinguished by the cold spirit that lies upon the superficies of the body; therefore the body evaporates a dewy thin sweat, which melts away and decays the strength. now if a man should sit still at such a time, there would not much heat fly out of his body. but when the motion of the body doth quickly heat the nourishment, and that heat bursts through the thin skin, there must necessarily be a great loss of strength. now we know by experience, that cold hath a virtue not only to condense but also to loosen bodies; for in extreme cold winters pieces of lead are found to sweat. and when we see that a bulimy happens where there is no hunger, we may conclude that at that time the body is rather in a fluid than condensed state. the reason that bodies are rarefied in winter is because of the subtility of the spirit; especially when the moving and tiring of the body stir the heat, which, as soon as it is subtilized and agitated, flies apace, and spreads itself through the whole body. lastly, it is very possible that apples and dry figs exhale some such thing as this, which rarefies and attenuates the heat of the beasts; for some things have a natural tendency as well to weaken as to refresh different creatures. question ix. why does homer appropriate a certain peculiar epithet to each particular liquid, and call oil only liquid? plutarch, and others. it was the subject once of a discourse, why, when there are several sorts of liquids, the poet should give every one of them a peculiar epithet, calling milk white, honey yellow, wine red, and yet for all this bestow no other upon oil but what it hath in common with all other liquids. to this it was answered that, as that is said to be most sweet which is perfectly sweet, and to be most white which is perfectly white (i mean here by perfectly that which hath nothing of a contrary quality mixed with it), so that ought to be called perfectly humid whereof never a part is dry; and this is proper to oil. for first of all, its smoothness shows the evenness of its parts; for touch it where you please, it is all alike. besides, you may see your face in it as perfectly as in a mirror; for there is nothing rough in it to hinder the reflection, but by reason of its humidity it reflects to the eye the least particle of light from every portion. as, on the contrary, milk, of all other liquids, does not return our images, because it hath too many terrene and gross parts mixed with it; again, oil of all other liquids makes the least noise when moved, for it is perfectly humid. when other liquids are moved or poured out, their hard and grosser parts fall and dash one against another, and so make a noise by reason of their roughness. moreover, oil only is pure and unmixed; for it is of all other liquids most compact, nor has it any empty spaces and pores between the dry and earthy parts to receive what chances to fall upon it. besides, because of the similitude of its parts, it is closely joined together, and unfit to be joined to anything else. when oil froths, it does not let any wind in, by reason of the contiguity and subtility of its parts; and this is also the cause why fire is nourished by it. for fire feeds upon nothing but what is moist, for nothing is combustible but what is so; for when the fire is kindled, the air turns to smoke, and the terrene and grosser parts remain in the ashes. fire only preys upon the moisture, which is its natural nourishment. indeed, water, wine, and other liquors, having abundance of earthy and heavy parts in them, by falling into fire part it, and by their roughness and weight smother and extinguish it. but oil, because purely liquid, by reason of its subtility, is overcome by the fire, and so changed into flame. it is the greatest argument that can be of its humidity, that the least quantity of it spreads itself a great way; for so small a drop of honey, water, or any other liquid does not extend itself so far, but very often, by reason of the dry mixed parts, is presently wasted. because oil is ductile and soft, men are wont to make use of it for anointing their bodies; for it runs along and spreads itself through all the parts, and sticks so firmly to them that it is not easily washed off. we find by experience, that a garment wet with water is presently dried again; but it is no easy matter to wash out the spots and stain of oil, for it enters deep, because of its most subtile and humid nature. hence it is that aristotle says, that the drops of diluted wine are the hardest to be got out of clothes, because they are most subtile, and run farther into the pores of the cloth. question x. what is the reason that flesh of sacrificed beasts, after being hung a while upon a fig-tree is more tender than before? aristio, plutarch, and others. at supper we were commanding aristio's cook, who, amongst other dishes that he had dressed very curiously, brought a cock to table just killed as a sacrifice to hercules, as tender as though it had been killed a day or two before. when aristio told us that this was no wonder,--seeing such a thing might very easily be done, if the cock, as soon as he was killed, was hung upon a fig-tree,--we began to inquire into the reason of what he asserted. indeed, i must confess, our eye assures us that a fig-tree sends out a fierce and strong spirit; which is yet more evident, from what we have heard said of bulls. that is, a bull, after he is tied to a fig-tree, though never so mad before, grows presently tame, and will suffer you to touch him, and on a sudden all his rage and fury cool and die. but the chiefest cause that works this change is the sharp acrimonious quality of the tree. for this tree is the fullest of sap, and so are its figs, wood, and bark; and hence it comes to pass, that the smoke of fig-wood is most offensive to the eyes; and when it is burned, its ashes make the best lye to scour withal. but all these effects proceed from heat. now there are some that say, when the sap of this tree thrown into milk curds it, that this effect does not arise from the irregular figures of the parts of the milk, which the sap joins and (as it were) sticks together, the smooth and globose parts being squeezed out, but that by its heat it loosens the unstable and watery parts of the liquid body. and we may use as a proof the unprofitableness of the sap of this tree, which, though it is very sweet, yet makes the worst liquor in the world. for it is not the inequality in the parts that affects the smooth part, but what is cold and raw is stopped by heat. and salt help to do this; for it is hot, and works contrary to the uniting of the parts just mentioned, causing rather a dissolution; for to it, above all other things, nature has given a dissolving faculty. therefore the fig-tree sends forth a hot and sharp spirit, which cuts and boils the flesh of the bird. the very same thing may be effected by placing the flesh upon a heap of corn, or near nitre; the heat will produce the same that the fig-tree did. now it may be made manifest that wheat is naturally hot, in that wine, put into a hogshead and placed among wheat, is presently consumed. book vii. the romans, sossius senecio, remember a pretty saying of a pleasant man and good companion, who supping alone said that he had eaten to-day, but not supped; as if a supper always wanted company and agreement to make it palatable and pleasing. evenus said that fire was the sweetest of all sauces in the world. and homer calls salt [greek omitted], divine; and most call it [greek omitted], graces, because, mixed with most part of our food, it makes it palatable and agreeable to the taste. now indeed the best and most divine sauce that can be at an entertainment or a supper is a familiar and pleasant friend; not because he eats and drinks with a man, but because he participates of and communicates discourse, especially if the talk be profitable, pertinent, and instructive. for commonly loose talk over a glass of wine raiseth passions and spoils company, and therefore it is fit that we should be as critical in examining what discourses as what friends are fit to be admitted to a supper; not following either the saying or opinion of the spartans, who, when they entertained any young man or a stranger in their public halls, showed him the door, with these words, "no discourse goes out this way." what we use to talk of may be freely disclosed to everybody, because we have nothing in our discourses that tends to looseness, debauchery, debasing of ourselves, or back-biting others. judge by the examples, of which this seventh book contains ten. question i. against those who find fault with plato for saying that drink passeth through the lungs. nicias, plutarch, protogenes, florus. at a summer entertainment, one of the company pronounced that common verse, now drench thy lungs with wine, the dog appears. and nicias of nicopolis, a physician, presently subjoined: it is no wonder that alcaeus, a poet, should be ignorant of that of which plato the philosopher was. though alcaeus may be defended; for it is probable that the lungs, lying near the stomach, may participate of the steam of the liquor, and be drenched with it. but the philosopher, expressly delivering that most part of our drink passeth through the lungs, hath precluded all ways of excuse to those that would be willing to defend him. for it is a very great and complicated ignorance; for first, it being necessary that our liquid and dry food should be mixed, it is very probable that the stomach is the vessel for them both, which throws out the dry food after it is grown soft and moist into the guts. besides, the lungs being a dense and compacted body, how is it possible that, when we sup gruel or the like, the thicker parts should pass through them? and this was the objection which erasistratus rationally made against plato. besides, when he considered for what end every part of the body was made, and what use nature designed in their contrivance, it was easy to perceive that the epiglottis was framed on purpose that when we drink the windpipe should be shut, and nothing be suffered to fall upon the lungs. for if anything by chance gets down that way, we are troubled with retching and coughing till it is thrown up again. and this epiglottis being framed so that it may fall on either side, whilst we speak it shuts the weasand, but when we eat or drink it falls upon the windpipe, and so secures the passage for our breath. besides, we know that those who drink by little and little are looser than those who drink greedily and large draughts; for in the latter the very force drives it into their bladders, but in the former it stays, and by its stay is mixed with and moistens the meat thoroughly. now this could not be, if in the very drinking the liquid was separated from the dry food; but the effect follows, because we mix and convey them both together, using (as erasistratus phraseth it) the liquid as a vehicle for the dry. nicias having done, protogenes the grammarian subjoined, that homer was the first that observed the stomach was the vessel of the food, and the windpipe (which the ancients called [greek omitted] of the breath, and upon the same account they called those who had loud voices [greek omitted]). and when he describes how achilles killed hector, he says, he pierced his weasand, where death enters soon; and adds, but not his windpipe, so that he could speak, ("iliad," xxii. 325-329.) taking the windpipe for the proper passage of the speech and breath.... upon this, all being silent, florus began thus: what, shall we tamely suffer plato to be run down? by no means, said i, for if we desert him, homer must be in the same condition, for he is so far from denying the windpipe to be the passage for our drink, that the dry food, in his opinion, goes the same way. for these are his words:- from his gullet [greek omitted] flowed the clotted wine and undigested flesh. ("odyssey," ix. 373.) unless perchance you will say that the cyclops, as he had but one eye, so had but one passage for his food and voice; or would have [greek omitted] to signify weasand, not windpipe, as both all the ancients and moderns use it. i produce this because it is really his meaning, not because i want other testimonies, for plato hath store of learned and sufficient men to join with him. for not to mention eupolis, who in his play called the "flatterers" says, protagoras bids us drink a lusty bowl, that when the dog appears our lungs may still be moist; or elegant eratosthenes, who says, and having drenched his lungs with purest wine; even euripides, somewhere expressly saying, the wine passed through the hollows of the lungs, shows that he saw better and clearer than erasistratus. for he saw that the lungs have cavities and pores, through which the liquids pass. for the breath in expiration hath no need of pores, but that the liquids and those things which pass with them might go through, it is made like a strainer and full of pores. besides, sir, as to the example of gruel which you proposed, the lungs can discharge themselves of the thicker parts together with the thin, as well as the stomach. for our stomach is not, as some fancy, smooth and slippery, but full of asperities, in which it is probable that the thin and small particles are lodged, and so not taken quite down. but neither this nor the other can we positively affirm; for the curious contrivance of nature in her operation is too hard to be explained; nor can we be particularly exact upon those instruments (i mean the spirit and the heat) which she makes use of in her works. but besides those we have mentioned to confirm plato's opinion, let us produce philistion of locri, very ancient and very famous physician, and hippocrates too, with his disciple dioxippus; for they thought of no other passage but that which plato mentions. dio says, that when we feed, the moist parts are about that separated from the dry, and the first are carried down the windpipe, the other down the weasand; and that the windpipe receives no parts of the food, but the stomach, together with the dry parts, receives some portion of the liquids. and this is probable, for the epiglottis lies over the windpipe, as a fence and strainer, that the drink may get in by little and little, lest descending in a large full stream, it stop the breath and endanger the life. and therefore birds have no epiglottis, because they do not sup or lap when they drink, but take up a little in their beak, and let it run gently down their windpipe. these testimonies i think are enough; and reason confirms plato's opinion by arguments drawn first from sense. for when the windpipe is wounded, no drink will go down; but as if the pipe were broken it runs out, though the weasand be whole and unhurt. and all know that in the inflammation of the lungs the patient is troubled with extreme thirst; the heat or dryness or some other cause, together with the inflammation, making the appetite intense. but a stronger evidence than all these follows. those creatures that have very small lungs, or none at all, neither want nor desire drink, because to some parts there belongs a natural appetite to drink, and those that want those parts have no need to drink, nor any appetite to be supplied by it. but more, the bladder would seem unnecessary; for, if the weasand receives both meat and drink and conveys it to the belly, the superfluous parts of the liquids would not want a proper passage, one common one would suffice as a canal for both that were conveyed to the same vessel by the same passage. but now the bladder is distinct from the guts, because the drink goes from the lungs, and the meat from the stomach; they being separated as we take them down. and this is the reason that in our water nothing can be found that either in smell or color resembles dry food. but if the drink were mixed with the dry meat in the belly, it must be impregnant with its qualities, and not come forth so simple and untinged. besides, a stone is never found in the stomach, though it is likely that the moisture should be coagulated there as well as in the bladder, if all the liquor were conveyed through the weasand then into the belly. but it is probable at the weasand robs the windpipe of a sufficient quantity of liquor as it is going down, and useth it to soften and concoct the meat. and therefore its excrement is never purely liquid; and the lungs, disposing of the moisture, as of the breath, to all of the parts that want it, deposit the superfluous portion in the bladder. and i am sure that this is a much more probable opinion than the other. but which is the truth cannot perhaps be discovered, and therefore it is not fit so peremptorily to find fault with the most acute and most famed philosopher, especially when the matter is so obscure, and the platonists can produce such considerable reasons for their position. question ii. what humored man is he that plato calls [greek omitted]? and why do those seeds that fall on the oxen's horns become [greek omitted]? plutarch, patrocles, euthydemus, florus. we had always some difficulty started about [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], not what humor those words signified (for it is certain that some, thinking that those seeds which fall on the oxen's horns bear fruit which is very hard, did by a metaphor call a stiff untractable fellow by these names), but what was the cause that seeds falling on the oxen's horns should bear hard fruit. i had often desired my friends to search no farther, most of all fearing the passage of theophrastus, in which he has collected many things whose causes we cannot discover. such are the hen's using a straw to purify herself with after she has laid, the seal's consuming her rennet when she is caught, the deer's burying his horns, and the goat's stopping the whole herd by holding a branch of sea-holly in his mouth; and among the rest he reckoned this is a thing of which we are certain, but whose cause it is very difficult to find. but once at supper at delphi, some of my companions--as if we were not only better counsellors when our bellies are full (as one hath it), but wine would make us brisker in our inquiries and bolder in our resolutions desired me to speak somewhat to that problem. i refused, though i had some excellent men on my side, namely, euthydemus my fellow-priest, and patrocles my relative, who brought several the like instances, which they had gathered both from husbandry and hunting; for instance, that those officers that are appointed to watch the coming of the hail avert the storm by offering a mole's blood or a woman's cloths; that a wild fig being bound to a garden fig-tree will keep the fruit from falling and promote their ripening; that deer when they are taken shed salt tears, and boars sweet. but if you have a mind to such questions, euthydemus will presently desire you to give an account of smallage and cummin; one of the which, if trodden down as it springs, will grow the better, and the other men curse and blaspheme whilst they sow it. this last florus thought to be an idle foolery; but he said, that we should not forbear to search into the causes of the other things as if they were incomprehensible. i have found, said i, your design to draw me on to this discourse, that you yourself may afterward give us a solution of the other proposed difficulties. in my opinion it is cold that causes this hardness in corn and pulse, by contracting and constipating their parts till the substance becomes close and extremely rigid; while heat is a dissolving and softening quality. and therefore those that cite this verse against homer, the season, not the field, bears fruit, do not justly reprehend him. for fields that are warm by nature, the air being likewise temperate, bear more mellow fruit than others. and therefore those seeds that fall immediately on the earth out of the sower's hand, and are covered presently, and cherished by being covered, partake more of the moisture and heat that is in the earth. but those that strike against the oxen's horns do not enjoy what hesiod names the best position, but seem to be scattered rather than sown; and therefore the cold either destroys them quite, or else, lighting upon them as they lie naked, condenseth their moisture, and makes them hard and woody. thus stones that lie under ground and, plant-animals have softer parts than those that lie above; and therefore stone-cutters bury the stones they would work, as if they designed to have them prepared and softened by the heat; but those that lie above ground are by the cold made hard, rigid, and very hurtful to the tools. and if corn lies long upon the floor, the grains become much harder than that which is presently carried away. and sometimes too a cold wind blowing whilst they winnow spoils the corn, as it hath happened at philippi in macedonia; and the chaff secures the grains whilst on the floor. for is it any wonder that as husband-men affirm, one ridge will bear soft and fruitful, and the very next to it hard and unfruitful corn or--which is stranger--that in the same bean-cod some beans are of this sort, some of the other, as more or less wind and moisture falls upon this or that? question iii. why the middle of wine, the top of oil, and the bottom of honey is best. alexion, plutarch, and others. my father-in-law alexion laughed at hesiod, for advising us to drink freely when the barrel is newly broached or almost out, but moderately when it is about the middle, since there is the best wine. for who, said he, doth not know, that the middle of wine, the top of oil, and the bottom of honey is the best? yet he bids us spare the middle, and stay till worse wine runs, when the barrel is almost out. this said, the company minded hesiod no more, but began to inquire into the cause of this difference. we were not at all puzzled about the honey, everybody almost knowing that that which is lightest is so because it is rare, and that the heaviest parts are dense and compact, and by reason of their weight settle below the others. so, if you turn the vessel, each in a little time will recover its proper place, the heavier subsiding, and the lighter rising above the rest. and as for the wine, probable solutions presently appeared; for its strength consisting in heat, it is reasonable that it should be contained chiefly in the middle, and there best preserved; for the lower parts the lees spoil, and the upper are impaired by the neighboring air. for that the air will impair wine no man doubts, and therefore we usually bury or cover our barrels, that as little air as can be might come near them. and besides (which is an evident sign) a barrel when full is not spoiled so soon as when it is half empty; because a great deal of air getting into the empty space troubles and disturbs the liquor, whereas the wine that is in the unemptied cask is preserved and defended by itself, not admitting much of the external air, which is apt to injure and corrupt it. but the oil gave us the most difficulty. one thought that the bottom of the oil was affected, because it was foul and troubled with the lees; and that the top was not really better than the rest, but only seemed so, because it was farthest removed from those corrupting particles. others thought the thickness of the liquor to be the reason, which thickness keeps it from mixing with other humids, unless blended together and shaken violently; and therefore it will not mix with air, but keeps it off by its smoothness and close contexture, so that it hath no power to corrupt it. but aristotle seems to be against this opinion, who hath observed that oil grows sweeter by being kept in vessels not exactly filled, and afterwards ascribes this melioration to the air; for more air, and therefore more powerful to produce the effect, flows into a vessel not well filled. well then! said i, the same quality in the air may spoil wine, and better oil. for long keeping improves wine, but spoils oil. now the air keeps oil from growing old; for that which is cooled continues fresh and new, but that which is kept close up, having no way to exhale its corrupting parts, presently decays, and grows old. therefore it is probable that the air coming upon the superficies of the oil keepeth it fresh and new. and this is the reason that the top of wine is worst, and of oil best; because age betters the one, and spoils the other. question iv. what was, the reason of that custom of the ancient romans to remove the table before all the meat was eaten, and not to put out the lamp? florus, eustrophus, caesernius, lucius. florus, who observed the ancient manners, would not let the table be removed quite empty, but always left some meat upon it; declaring likewise that his father and grandfather were not only curious in this matter, but would never suffer the lamp after supper to be put out,--a thing about which the ancient romans were very careful,--while those of to-day put it out immediately after supper, that they may lose no oil. eustrophus the athenian being present said: what could they get by that, unless they knew the cunning trick of our polycharmus, who, after long deliberation how to find out a way to prevent the servants' stealing of the oil, at last with a great deal of difficulty happened upon this: as soon as you have put out the lamp, fill it up, and the next morning look carefully whether it remains full. then florus with a smile replied: well, since we are agreed about that, let us inquire for what reason the ancients were so careful about their tables and their lamps. first, about the lamps. and his son-in-law caesernius was of opinion that the ancients abominated all extinction of fire, because of the relation that it had to the sacred and eternal flame. fire, like man, may be destroyed two ways, either when it is violently quenched, or when it naturally decays. the sacred fire was secured against both ways, being always watched and continually supplied; but the common fire they permitted to go out of itself, not forcing or violently extinguishing it, but not supplying it with nourishment, like a useless beast, that they might not feed it to no purpose. lucius, florus's son, subjoined, that all the rest of the discourse was very good, but that they did not reverence and take care of this holy fire because they thought it better or more venerable than other fire; but, as amongst the egyptians some worship the whole species of dogs, wolves, or crocodiles, yet keep but one wolf, dog, or crocodile (for all could not be kept), so the particular care which the ancients took of the sacred fire was only a sign of the respect they had for all fires. for nothing bears such a resemblance to an animal as fire. it is moved and nourished by itself, and by its brightness, like the soul, discovers and makes everything apparent; but in its quenching it principally shows some power that seems to proceed from our vital principle, for it makes a noise and resists, like an animal dying or violently slaughtered. and can you (looking upon me) offer any better reason? i can find fault, replied i, with no part of the discourse, yet i would subjoin, that this custom is an instruction for kindness and good-will. for it is not lawful for any one that hath eaten sufficiently to destroy the remainder of the food; nor for him that hath supplied his necessities from the fountain to stop it up; nor for him that hath made use of any marks, either by sea or land, to ruin or deface them; but every one ought to leave those things that may be useful to those persons that afterwards may have need of them. therefore it is not fit, out of a saving covetous humor, to put out a lamp as soon as we need it not; but we ought to preserve and let it burn for the use of those that perhaps want its light. thus, it would be very generous to lend our ears and eyes, nay, if possible, our reason and understanding, to others, whilst we are idle or asleep. besides, consider whether to stir up men to gratitude these minute observances were practised. the ancients did not act absurdly when they highly reverenced an oak. the athenians called one fig-tree sacred, and forbade any one to cut down an olive. for such observances do not (as some fancy) make men prone to superstition, but persuade us to be communicative and grateful to one another, by being accustomed to pay this respect to these senseless and inanimate creatures. upon the same reason hesiod, methinks, adviseth well, who would not have any meat or broth set on the table out of those pots out of which there had been no portion offered, but ordered the first-fruits to be given to the fire, as a reward for the service it did in preparing it. and the romans, dealing well with the lamps, did not take away the nourishment they had once given, but permitted them to live and shine by it. when i had said thus, eustrophus subjoined: this gives us some light into that query about the table; for they thought that they ought to leave some portion of the supper for the servants and waiters, for those are not so well pleased with a supper provided for them apart, as with the relics of their master's table. and upon this account, they say, the persian king did not only send portions from his own table to his friends, captains, and gentlemen of his bed-chamber, but had always what was provided for his servants and his dogs served up to his own table; that as far as possible all those creatures whose service was useful might seem to be his guests and companions. for, by such feeding in common and participation, the wildest of beasts might be made tame and gentle. then i with a smile said: but, sir, that fish there, that according to the proverb is laid up, why do not we bring out into play together with pythagoras's choenix, which he forbids any man to sit upon, thereby teaching us that we ought to leave something of what we have before us for another time, and on the present day be mindful of the morrow? we boeotians use to have that saying frequently in our mouths, "leave something for the medes," ever since the medes overran and spoiled phocis and the marches of boeotia; but still, and upon all occasions, we ought to have that ready, "leave something for the guests that may come." and therefore i must needs find fault with that always empty and starving table of achilles; for, when ajax and ulysses came ambassadors to him, he had nothing ready, but was forced out of hand to dress a fresh supper. and when he would entertain priam, he again bestirs himself, kills a white ewe, joints and dresses it, and in that work spent a great part of the night. but eumaeus (a wise scholar of a wise master) had no trouble upon him when telemachus came home, but presently desired him to sit down, and feasted him, setting before him dishes of boiled meat, the cleanly reliques of the last night's feast. but if this seems trifling, and a small matter, i am sure it is no small matter to command and restrain appetite while there are dainties before you to satisfy and please it. for those that are used to abstain from what is present are not so eager for absent things as others are. lucius subjoining said, that he had heard his grandmother say, that the table was sacred, and nothing that is sacred ought to be empty. beside [omitted]. therefore as we desire that the earth should always have and bear something that is useful for us, so we think that we should not let the table be altogether empty and void of all provision. question v. that we ought carefully to preserve ourselves from pleasures arising from bad music and how it may be done. callistratus, lamprias. at the pythian games callistratus, procurator of the amphictyons, forbade a piper, his citizen and friend, who did not give in his name in due time, to appear in the solemnity, according to the law. but afterward very fine tune; but afterwards, having tickled and sounded the humor of the whole company, and found that most were inclined to pleasure and would suffer him to play what effeminate and lascivious tunes he pleased, throwing aside all modesty, he showed that music was more intoxicating than wine to those that wantonly and unskilfully use it. for they were not content to sit still and applaud and clap, but many at last leaped from their seats, danced lasciviously, and made such gentle steps as became such effeminate and mollifying tunes. but after they had done, and the company, as it were recovered of its madness, began to come to itself again, lamprias would have spoken to and severely chid the young men; but as fearing he would be too harsh and give offence, callistratus gave him a hint, and drew him on by this discourse:-for my part, i absolve all lovers of shows and music from intemperance; yet i cannot altogether agree with aristoxenus, who says that those pleasures alone deserve the approbation "fine." for we call viands and ointments fine; and we say we have finely dined, when we have been splendidly entertained. nor, in my opinion, doth aristotle free those complacencies we take in shows and songs upon good reason from the charge of excess, saying, that those belong peculiarly to man, and of other pleasures beasts have a share. for i am certain that a great many irrational creatures are delighted with music, as deer with pipes; and to mares, whilst they are horsing, they play a tune called [greek omitted]. and pindar says, that his songs make him move, as brisk as dolphins, whom a charming tune hath raised from th' bottom of the quiet flood. and certain fish are taken by means of dancing; for as the dance goes on they lift up their heads above water, being much pleased and delighted with the sight, and twisting their backs this way and that way, in imitation of the dancers. therefore i see nothing peculiar in those pleasures, that they should be accounted proper to the mind, and all others to belong to the body, so far as to end there. but music, rhythm, dancing, song, passing through the sense, fix a pleasure and titilation in the sportive part of the soul and therefore none of these pleasures is enjoyed in secret, nor wants darkness nor walls about it, according to the women's phrase; but circuses and theatres are built for them. and to frequent shows and music-meetings with company is both more delightful and more genteel; because we take a great many witnesses, not of a luxurious and intemperate, but of a pleasant and respectable, manner of passing away our time. upon this discourse of callistratus, my father lamprias, seeing the musicians grow bolder, said: that is not the reason, sir, and, in my opinion, the ancients were much out when they named bacchus the son of forgetfulness. they ought to have called him his father; for it seems he hath made you forget that of those faults which are committed about pleasures some proceed from a loose intemperate inclination, and others from heedlessness or ignorance. where the ill effect is very plain, there intemperate inclination captivates reason, and forces men to sin; but where the just reward of intemperance is not directly and presently inflicted, there ignorance of the danger and heedlessness make men easily wrought oil and secure. therefore those that are vicious, either in eating, drinking, or venery, which diseases, wasting of estates, and evil reports usually attend, we call intemperate. for instance, theodectes, who having sore eyes, when his mistress came to see him, said, all hail, delightful light; or anaxarchus the abderite, a wretch who knew what evils wait on sin, yet love of pleasure drove him back again. once almost free, he sank again to vice, that terror and disturber of the wise. now those that take all care possible to secure themselves from all those pleasures that assault them either at the smelling, touch, or taste, are often surprised by those that make their treacherous approaches either at the eye or ear. but such, though as much led away as the others, we do not in like manner call incontinent and intemperate, since they are ruined through ignorance and want of experience. for they imagine they are far from being slaves to pleasures, if they can stay all day in the theatre without meat or drink; as if a pot forsooth should be mighty proud that a man cannot take it up by the bottom or the belly and carry it away, though he can easily do it by the ears. and therefore agesilaus said, it was all one whether a man were a cinoedus before or behind. we ought principally to dread those softening delights that please and tickle through the eyes and ears, and not think that city not taken which hath all its other gates secured by bars, portcullises, and chains, if the enemies are already entered through one and have taken possession; or fancy ourselves invincible against the assaults of pleasure, because stews will not provoke us, when the music-meeting or theatre prevails. for we in one case as much as the other resign up our souls to the impetuousness of pleasures, which pouring in those potions of songs, cadences, and tunes, more powerful and bewitching than the best mixtures of the most skilful cook or perfumer, conquer and corrupt us; and in the meantime, by our own confession as it were, the fault is chiefly ours. now, as pindar saith, nothing that the earth and sea hath provided for our tables can be justly blamed; but neither our meat nor broth, nor this excellent wine which we drink, hath raised such a noisy tumultous pleasure as those songs and tunes did, which not only filled the house with clapping and shouting, but perhaps the whole town. therefore we ought principally to secure ourselves against such delights, because they are more powerful than others; as not being terminated in the body, like those which allure the touch, taste, or smelling, but affecting the very intellectual and judging faculties. besides, from most other delights, though reason doth not free us, yet other passions very commonly divert us. sparing niggardliness will keep a glutton from dainty fish, and covetousness will confine a lecher from a costly whore. as in one of menander's plays, where every one of the company was to be enticed by the bawd who brought out a surprising whore, but each of them, though all boon companions, sat sullenly, and fed upon his cates. for to pay interest for money is a severe punishment that follows intemperance, and to open our purses is no easy matter. but these pleasures that are called genteel, and solicit the ears or eyes of those that are frantic after shows and music, may be had without any charge at all, in every place almost, and upon every occasion; they may be enjoyed at the prizes, in the theatre, or at entertainments, at others cost. and therefore those that have not their reason to assist and guide them may be easily spoiled. silence following upon this, what application, said i, shall reason make, or how shall it assist? for i do not think it will apply those ear-covers of xenocrates, or force us to rise from the table as soon as we hear a harp struck or a pipe blown. no indeed, replied lamprias, but as soon as we meet with the foresaid intoxications, we ought to make our application to the muses, and fly to the helicon of the ancients. to him that loves a costly strumpet, we cannot bring a panthea or penelope for cure; but one that delights in mimics and buffoons, loose odes, or debauched songs, we can bring to euripides, pindar, and menander, that he might wash (as plato phraseth it) his salt hearing with fresh reason. as the exorcists command the possessed to read over and pronounce ephesian letters, so we in those possessions, during the madness of music and the dance, when we toss our hands with noise, and madly shout, remembering those venerable and sacred writings, and comparing with them those odes, poems, and vain empty compositions, shall not be altogether cheated by them, or permit ourselves to be carried away sidelong, as by a smooth and undisturbed stream. question vi. concerning those guests that are called shadows, and whether being invited by some to go to another's house, they ought to go; and when, and to whom. plutarch, florus, caesernius. homer makes menelaus come uninvited to his brother agamemnon's treat, when he feasted the commanders; for well he knew great cares his brother vexed. ("iliad," ii. 409.) he did not take notice of the plain and evident omission of his brother, or show his resentments by not coming, as some surly testy persons usually do upon such oversights of their best friends; yet they had rather be overlooked than particularly invited, that they may have some color for their pettish anger. but about the introduced guests (which we call shadows) who are not invited by the entertainer, but by some others of the guests, a question was started, from whom that custom began. some thought from socrates, who persuaded aristodemus, who was not invited, to go along with him to agatho's, where there happened a pretty jest. for socrates by chance staying somewhat behind, aristodemus went in first; and this seemed very appropriate, for, the sun shining on their backs, the shadow ought to go before the body. afterwards it was thought necessary at all entertainments, especially of great men, when the inviter did not know their favorites and acquaintance, to desire the invited to bring his company, appointing such a set number, lest they should be put to the same shifts which he was put to who invited king philip to his country-house. the king came with a numerous attendance, but the provision was not equal to the company. therefore, seeing his entertainer much cast down, he sent some about to tell his friends privately, that they should keep one corner of their bellies for a large cake that was to come. and they, expecting this, fed sparingly on the meat that was set before them, so that the provision seemed sufficient for them all. when i had talked thus waggishly to the company florus had a mind to talk gravely concerning these shadows, and have it discussed whether it was fit for those that were so invited to go, or no. his son-in-law caesernius was positively against it. we should, says he, following hesiod's advice, invite a friend to feast, ("works and days," 342.) or at least we should have our acquaintance and familiars to participate of our entertainments, mirth, and discourse over a glass of wine; but now, as ferry-men permit their passengers to bring in what fardel they please, so we permit others to fill our entertainments with any persons, let them be good companions or not. and i should wonder that any man of breeding being so (that is, not at all) invited, should go; since, for the most part, he must be unacquainted with the entertainer, or if he was acquainted, was not thought worthy to be bidden. nay, he should be more ashamed to go to such a one, if he considers that it will look like an upbraiding of his unkindness, and yet a rude intruding into his company against his will. besides, to go before or after the guest that invites him must look unhandsomely, nor is it creditable to go and stand in need of witnesses to assure the guests that he doth not come as a principally invited person, but such a one's shadow. besides, to attend others bathing or anointing, to observe his hour, whether he goes early or late, is servile and gnathonical (for there never was such an excellent fellow as gnatho to feed at another man's table). besides, if there is no more proper time and place to say, speak, tongue, if thou wilt utter jovial things, than at a feast, and freedom and raillery is mixed with everything that is either done or said over a glass of wine, how should he behave himself, who is not a true principally invited guest, but as it were a bastard and supposititious intruder? for whether he is free or not, he lies open to the exception of the company. besides, the very meanness and vileness of the name is no small evil to those who do not resent it but can quietly endure to be called and answer to the name of shadows. for, by enduring such base names, men are insensibly accustomed and drawn on to base actions. therefore, when i make an invitation, for it is hard to break the custom of a place, i give my guests leave to bring shadows; but when i myself am invited as a shadow, i assure you i refuse to go. a short silence followed this discourse; then florus began thus: this last thing you mentioned, sir, is a greater difficulty than the other. for it is necessary when we invite our friends to give them liberty to choose their own shadows, as was before hinted; for to entertain them without their friends is not very obliging, nor is it very easy to know whom the person we invite would be most pleased with. then said i to him: consider therefore whether those that give their friends this license to invite do not at the same time give the invited license to accept the invitation and come to the entertainment. for it is not fit either to allow or to desire another to do that which is not decent to be done, or to urge and persuade to that which no one ought to be persuaded or to consent to do. when we entertain a great man or stranger, there we cannot invite or choose his company, but must receive those that come along with him. but when we feast a friend, it will be more acceptable if we ourselves invite all, as knowing his acquaintance and familiars; for it tickles him extremely to see that others take notice that he hath chiefly a respect for such and such, loves their company most, and is well pleased when they are honored and invited as well as he. yet sometimes we must deal with our friend as petitioners do when they make addresses to a god; they offer vows to all that belong to the same altar and the same shrine, though they make no particular mention of their names. for no dainties, wine, or ointment can incline a man to merriment, as much as a pleasant agreeable companion. for as it is rude and ungenteel to inquire and ask what sort of meat, wine, or ointment the person whom we are to entertain loves best; so it is neither disobliging nor absurd to desire him who hath a great many acquaintance to bring those along with him whose company he likes most, and in whose conversation he can take the greatest pleasure. for it is not so irksome and tedious to sail in the same ship, to dwell in the same house, or be a judge upon the same bench, with a person whom we do not like, as to be at the same table with him; and the contrary is fully as pleasant. an entertainment is a communion of serious or merry discourse or actions; and therefore, to make a merry company, we should not pick up any person at a venture, but take only such as are known to one another and sociable. cooks, it is true, mix sour and sweet juices, rough and oily, to make their sauces; but there never was an agreeable table or pleasant entertainment where the guests were not all of a piece, and all of the same humor. now, as the peripatetics say, the first mover in nature moves only and is not moved, and the last moved is moved only but does not move, and between these there is that which moves and is moved by others; so there is the same analogy between those three sorts of persons that make up a company,--there is the simple inviter, the simple invited and the invited that invites another. we have spoken already concerning the inviter, and it will not be improper, in my opinion, to deliver my sentiments about the other two. he that is invited and invites others, should, in my opinion, be sparing in the number that he brings. he should not, as if he were to forage in an enemy's country, carry all he can with him; or, like those who go to possess a new-found land, by the excessive number of his own friends, incommode or exclude the friends of the inviter, so that the inviter must be in the same case with those that set forth suppers to hecate and the gods who turn away evil, of which neither they nor any of their family partake, except of the smoke and trouble. it is true they only speak in waggery that say, he that at delphi offers sacrifice must after meat for his own dinner buy. but the same thing really happens to him who entertains ill-bred guests or acquaintances, who with a great many shadows, as it were harpies, tear and devour his provision. besides, he should not take anybody that he may come upon along with him to another's entertainment, but chiefly the entertainer's acquaintance, as it were contending with him and preceding him in the invitation. but if that cannot be effected, let him carry such of his own friends as the entertainer would choose himself; to a civil modest man, some of complaisant humor; to a learned man, ingenuous persons; to a man that hath borne office, some of the same rank; and, in short, such whose acquaintance he hath formerly sought and would be now glad of. for it will be extremely pleasing and obliging to bring such into company together; but one who brings to a feast men who have no likeness at all with the feast-maker, but who are entire aliens and strangers to him,--as hard drinkers to a sober man,--gluttons and sumptuous persons to a temperate thrifty entertainer,--or to a young, merry, boon companion, grave old philosophers solemnly speaking in their beards,--will be very disobliging, and turn all the intended mirth into an unpleasant sourness. the entertained should be as obliging to the entertainer as the entertainer to the entertained; and then he will be most obliging, when not only he himself, but all those that come by his means, are pleasant and agreeable. the last of the three which remains to be spoken of is he that is invited by one man to another's feast. now he that disdains and is so much offended at the name of a shadow will appear to be afraid of a mere shadow. but in this matter there is need of a great deal of caution, for it is not creditable readily to go along with every one and to everybody. but first you must consider who it is that invites; for if he is not a very familiar friend, but a rich or great man, such who, as if upon a stage, wants a large or splendid retinue, or such who thinks that he puts a great obligation upon you and does you a great deal of honor by this invitation, you must presently deny. but if he is your friend and particular acquaintance, you must not yield upon the first motion: but if there seems a necessity for some conversation which cannot be put off till another time, or if he is lately come from a journey or designs to go on one, and out of mere good-will and affection seems desirous of your company, and doth not desire to carry a great many, or strangers, but only some few friends along with him; or, besides all this, if he designs to bring you thus invited acquainted with the principal inviter, who is very worthy of your acquaintance, then consent and go. for as to ill-humored persons, the more they seize and take hold of us like thorns, we should endeavor to free ourselves from them or leap over them the more. if he that invites is a civil and well-bred person, yet doth not design to carry you to one of the same temper, you must refuse, lest you should take poison in honey, that is, get the acquaintance of a bad man by an honest friend. it is absurd to go to one you do not know, and with whom you never had any familiarity, unless, as i said before, the person be an extraordinary man, and, by a civil waiting, upon him at another man's invitation, you design to begin an acquaintance with him. and those friends you should chiefly go to as shadows, who would come to you again in the same quality. to philip the jester, indeed, he seemed more ridiculous that came to a feast of his own accord than he that was invited; but to well-bred and civil friends it is more obliging for men of the same temper to come at the nick of time with other friends, when uninvited and unexpected; at once pleasing both to those that invite and those that entertain. but chiefly you must avoid going to rulers, rich or great men, lest you incur the deserved censure of being impudent, saucy, rude, and unseasonably ambitious. question vii. whether flute-girls are to be allowed at a feast? diogenianus, a sophist, philip. at chaeronea, diogenianus the pertamenian being present, we had a long discourse once at an entertainment about music; and we had a great deal of trouble to hold out against a great bearded sophister of the stoic sect, who quoted plato as blaming a company that admitted flute-girls and were not able to entertain one another with discourse. and philip the prusian, of the same sect, said: those guests of agatho, whose discourse was more sweet than the sound of any pipe in the world, were no good authority in this case; for it was no wonder that in their company the flute-girl was not regarded; but it is strange that, in the midst of the entertainment, the extreme pleasantness of the discourse had not made them forget their meat and drink. yet xenophon thought it not indecent to bring in to socrates, antisthenes, and the like the jester philip; as homer doth an onion to make the wine relish. and plato brought in aristophanes's discourse of love, as a comedy, into his entertainment; and at the last, as it were drawing all the curtains, he shows a scene of the greatest variety imaginable,--alcibiades drunk, frolicking, and crowned. then follows that pleasant raillery between him and socrates concerning agatho, and the encomium of socrates; and when such discourse was going on, good gods! had it not been allowable, if apollo himself had come in with his harp ready to desire the god to forbear till the argument was out? these men, having such a pleasant way of discoursing, used these arts and insinuating methods, and graced their entertainment's by such facetious raillery. but shall we, being mixed with tradesmen and merchants, and some (as it now and then happens) ignorants and rustics, banish out of our entertainments this ravishing delight, or fly the musicians, as if they were sirens, as soon as we see them coming? clitomachus the wrestler, rising and getting away when any one talked of love, was much wondered at; and should not a philosopher that banisheth music from a feast, and is afraid of a musician, and bids his link boy presently light his link and be gone, be laughed at, since he seems to abominate the most innocent pleasures, as beetles do ointment? for, if at any time, certainly over a glass of wine, music should be permitted, and then chiefly the harmonious god should have the direction of our souls; so that euripides, though i like him very well in other things, shall never persuade me that music, as he would have it, should be applied to melancholy and grief. for there sober and serious reason, like a physician, should take care of the diseased men; but those pleasures should be mixed with bacchus, and serve to increase our mirth and frolic. therefore it was a pleasant saying of that spartan at athens, who, when some new tragedians were to contend for the prize, seeing the preparations of the masters of the dances, the hurry and busy diligence of the instructors, said, the city was certainly mad which sported with so much pains. he that designs to sport should sport, and not buy his case and pleasure with great expense, or the loss of that time which might be useful to other things; but whilst he is feasting and free from business, those should be enjoyed. and it is advisable to try amidst our mirth, whether any profit is to be gotten from our delights. question viii. what sort of music is fittest for an entertainment? diogenianus, a sophist, philip. when philip had ended, i hindered the sophister from returning an answer to the discourse, and said: let us rather inquire, diogenianus, since there are a great many sorts of music, which is fittest for an entertainment. and let us beg this learned man's judgment in this case; for since he is not prejudiced or apt to be biased by any sort, there is no danger that he should prefer that which is pleasantest before that which is best. diogenianus joining with me in this request, he presently began. all other sorts i banish to the theatre and playhouse, and can only allow that which hath been lately admitted into the entertainments at rome, and with which everybody is not yet acquainted. you know, continued he, that some of plato's dialogues are purely narrative, and some dramatic. the easiest of this latter sort they teach their children to speak by heart; making them to imitate the actions of those persons they represent, and to form their voice and affections to be agreeable to the words. this all the grave and well-bred men exceedingly admire; but soft and effeminate fellows, whose ears ignorance and ill-breeding hath corrupted, and who, as aristoxenus phraseth it, are ready to vomit when they hear excellent harmony, reject it; and no wonder, when effeminacy prevails. philip, perceiving some of the company uneasy at this discourse, said: pray spare us, sir, and be not so severe upon us; for we were the first that found fault with that custom when it first began to be countenanced in rome, and reprehended those who thought plato fit to entertain us whilst we were making merry, and who would hear his dialogues whilst they were eating cates and scattering perfumes. when sappho's songs or anaereon's verses are recited, i protest i think it decent to set aside my cup. but should i proceed, perhaps you would think me much in earnest, and designing to oppose you, and therefore, together with this cup which i present my friend, i leave it to him to wash your salt ear with fresh discourse. then diogenianus, taking the cup, said: methinks this is very sober discourse, which makes me believe that the wine doth not please you, since i see no effect of it; so that i fear i ought to be corrected. indeed, many sorts of music are not to be rejected; first, tragedy, as having nothing familiar enough for an entertainment, and being a representation of actions attended with grief and extremity of passion. i reject the sort of dancing which is called pyladean from pylades, because it is full of pomp, very pathetical, and requires a great many persons; but if we would admit any of those sorts that deserve those encomiums which socrates mentions in his discourse about dancing, i like that sort called bathyllean, which requires not so high a motion, but hath something of the character of the cordax, and resembles the motion of an echo, a pan, or a satyr frolicking with love. old comedy is not fit for men that are making merry, by reason of the excuses that appear in it; for that vehemency which they use in the parabasis is loud and indecent, and the liberty they take to scoff and abuse is very surfeiting, too open, and full of filthy words and lewd expressions. besides, as at great men's tables every man hath a servant waiting at his elbow, so each of his guests would need a grammarian to sit by him, and explain who is laespodias in eupolis, cinesias in plato, and lampo in cratinus, and who is each person that is jeered in the play. concerning new comedy there is no need of any long discourse. it is so fitted, so interwoven with entertainments, that it is easier to have a regular feast without wine, than without menander. its phrase is sweet and familiar, the humor innocent and easy, so that there is nothing for men whilst sober to despise, or when merry to be troubled at. the sentiments are so natural and unstudied, that midst wine, as it were in fire, they soften and bend the rigidest temper to be pliable and easy. and the mixture of gravity and jests seems to be contrived for nothing so aptly as for the pleasure and profit of those that are frolicking and making merry. the love-scenes in menander are convenient for those who have already drunk their cups, and who in a short time must retire home to their wives; for in all his plays there is no love of boys mentioned, and all rapes committed on virgins and decently in marriages at last. as for misses, if they are impudent and jilting, they are bobbed, the young gallants turning sober, and repenting of their lewd courses. but if they are kind and constant, either their true parents are discovered, or a time is determined for intrigue, which brings them at last to obliging modesty and civil kindness. these things to men busied about other matters may seem scarce worth taking notice of; but whilst they are making merry, it is no wonder that the pleasantness and smoothness of the parts should work a neat conformity and distinction in the hearers and make their manners like the pattern they have from those genteel characters. diogenianus, either designedly or for want of breath ended thus. and when the sophister attacked him again, and contended that some of aristophanes's verses should be read, philip speaking to me said: diogenianus hath had his wish in praising his beloved menander, and seems not to care for any of the rest. there are a great many sorts which we have not at all considered, concerning which i should be very glad to have your opinion; and the prize for the carvers we will set up to-morrow, when we are sober, if diogenianus and this stranger think fit. of representations, said i, some are allegorical, and some are farces; neither of these are fit for an entertainment; the first by reason of their length and cost, and the latter being so full of filthy discourse and lewd actions, that they are not fit to be seen by the foot-boys that wait on civil masters. yet the rabble, even with their wives and young sons, sit quietly to be spectators of such representations as are apt to disturb the soul more than the greatest debauch in drink. the harp ever since homer's time was well acquainted with feasts and entertainments, and therefore it is not fitting to dissolve such an ancient friendship and acquaintance; but we should only desire the harpers to forbear their sad notes and melancholy tunes, and play only those that are delighting, and fit for such as are making merry. the pipe, if we would, we cannot reject, for the libation in the beginning of the entertainment requires that as well as the garland. then it insinuates and passeth through the ears, spreading even to the very soul a pleasant sound, which produceth serenity and calmness; so that, if the wine hath not quite dissolved or driven away all vexing solicitous anxiety this, by the softness and delightful agreeableness of its sound, smooths and calms the spirits, if so be that it keeps within due bounds, and doth not elevate too much, and, by its numerous surprising divisions, raise an ecstasy in the soul which wine hath weakened and made easy to be perverted. for as brutes do not understand a rational discourse, yet lie down or rise up at the sound of a shell or whistle, or of a chirp or clap; so the brutish part of the soul, which is either incapable of understanding or obeying reason, men conquer by songs and tunes, and by music reduce it to tolerable order. but to speak freely what i think, no pipe nor harp simply played upon, and without a song with it, can be very fit for an entertainment. for we should still accustom ourselves to take our chiefest pleasure from discourse, and spend our leisure time in profitable talk, and use tunes and airs as a sauce for the discourse, and not singly by themselves, to please the unreasonable delicacy of our palate. for as nobody is against pleasure that ariseth from sauce or wine going in with our necessary food, but socrates flouts and refuseth to admit that superfluous and vain pleasure which we take in perfumes and odors at a feast; thus the sound of a pipe or harp, when singly applied to our ears, we utterly reject, but if it accompanies words, and together with an ode feasts and delights our reason, we gladly introduce it. and we believe the famed marsyas was punished by apollo for pretending, when he had nothing but his single pipe, and his muzzle to apply to his lips, to contend with the harp and song of the god. let us only take care that, when we have such guests as are able to cheer one another with philosophy and good discourse we do not introduce anything that may rather prove an uneasy hindrance to the conversation than promote it. for not only those are fools, who, as euripides says, having safety at home and in their own power, yet would hire some from abroad; but those too who, having pleasantness enough within, are eager after some external pastimes to comfort and delight them. that extraordinary piece of honor which the persian king showed antalcidas the spartan seemed rude and uncivil, when he dipped a garland composed of crocus and roses in ointment, and sent it him to wear, by that dipping putting a slight upon and spoiling the natural sweetness and beauty of the flowers. he doth as bad, who having a muse in his own breast, and all the pleasantness that would fit an entertainment, will have pipes and harps play, and by that external adventitious noise destroy all the sweetness that was proper and his own. but in short, all ear-delights are fittest then, when the company begins to be disturbed, to fall out, and quarrel, for then they may prevent raillery and reproach, and stop the dispute that is running on to sophistical and unpleasant wrangling, and bridle all babbling declamatory altercations, so that the company may be freed of noise and quietly composed. question ix. that it was the custom of the greeks as well as persians to debate of state affairs at their entertainments. nicostratus, glaucias. at nicostratus's table we discoursed of those matters which the athenians were to debate of in their next assembly. and one of the company saying, it is the persian fashion, sir, to debate midst your cups; and why, said glaucias rejoining, not the grecian fashion? for it was a greek that said, after your belly's full, your counsel's best. and they were greeks who with agamemnon besieged troy, to whom, whilst they were eating and drinking, old nestor first began a grave debate; ("iliad," vii. 324.) and he himself advised the king before to call the commanders together for the same purpose:- for the commanders, sir, a feast prepare, and see who counsels best, and follow him. (ibid, ix. 70 and 74.) therefore greece, having a great many excellent institutions, and zealously following the customs of the ancients, hath laid the foundations of her polities in wine. for the assemblies in crete called andria, those in sparta called phiditia, were secret consultations and aristocratical assemblies; such, i suppose, as the prytaneum and thesmothesium here at athens. and not different from these is that night-meeting, which plato mentions, of the best and most polite men, to which the greatest, the most considerable and puzzling matters are assigned. and those who, when they do design to seek their rest, to mercury their just libations pour, ("odyssey," vii. 138.) do they not join reason and wine together, since, when they are about to retire, they make their vows to the wisest god, as if he was present and particularly president over their actions? but the ancients indeed call bacchus the good counsellor, as if he had no need of mercury; and for his sake they named the night [greek omitted] as it were, good adviser. question x. whether they did well who deliberated midst their cups. glaucias, nicostratus. whilst glaucias was discoursing thus, the former tumultuous talk seemed to be pretty well lulled; and that it might be quite forgotten, nicostratus started another question, saying, he never valued the matter before, whilst he thought it a persian custom, but since it was discovered to be the greek fashion too, it wanted (he thought) some reason to excuse or defend its seeming absurdity. for our reason ( much moisture, is hard to be moved, and unable to perform its operations. and all sorts of troubles and discontents, like insects to the sun, creeping forth, and being agitated by a glass of wine, make the mind irresolute and inconstant. therefore as a bed is more convenient for a man whilst making merry than a chair, because it contains the whole body and keeps it from all disturbing motion, so it is best to have the soul perfectly at quiet; or, if that cannot be, we must give it, as to children that will be doing, not a sword or spear, but a rattle or a ball,--in this following the example of the god himself, who puts into the hands of those that are making merry a ferula, the lightest and softest of all weapons, that, when they are most apt to strike, they may hurt least. over a glass of wine men should make only ridiculous slips, and not such as may prove tragical, lamentable, or of any considerable concern. besides, in serious debates, it is chiefly to be considered, that persons of mean understanding and unacquainted with business should be guided by the wise and experienced; but wine destroys this order. insomuch that plato says, wine is called [greek omitted] because it makes those that drink it [greek omitted] think that they have wit; for none over a glass of wine thinks himself so noble, beauteous, or rich (though he fancies himself all these), as wise; and therefore wine is babbling, full of talk, and of a dictating humor; so that we are rather for being heard than hearing, for leading than being led. but a thousand such objections may be raised, for they are very obvious. but let us hear which of the company, either old or young, can allege anything for the contrary opinion. then said my brother cunningly: and do you imagine that any, upon a sudden, can produce any probable reasons? and nicostratus replying, yes, no doubt, there being so many learned men and good drinkers in company; he with a smile continued: do you think, sir, you are fit to treat of these matters, when wine hath disabled you to discourse of politics and state affairs? or is not this all the same as to think that a man in his liquor doth not see very well nor understand those that talk and discourse with him, yet hears the music and the pipers very well? for as it is likely that useful and profitable things draw and affect the sense more than fine and gaudy; so likewise they do the mind too. and i shall not wonder that the nice philosophical speculation should escape a man who hath drunk freely; but yet, i think, if he were called to political debates, his wisdom would become more strong and vigorous. thus philip at chaeronea, being well heated, talked very foolishly, and was the sport of the whole company; but as soon as they began to discourse of a truce and peace, he composed his countenance, contracted his brows, and dismissing all vain, empty and dissolute thoughts, he gave an excellent, wise, and sober answer to the athenians. to drink freely is different from being drunk, and those that drink till they grow foolish ought to retire to bed. but as for those that drink freely and are otherwise men of sense, why should we fear that they will fail in their understanding or lose their skill, when we see that musicians play as well at a feast as in a theatre? for when skill and art are found in the soul, they make the body correct and proper in its operations, and obedient to the motions of the spirit. besides, wine inspirits some men, and raises a confidence and assurance in them, but not such as is haughty and odious, but pleasing and agreeable. thus they say that aeschylus composed his tragedies over a bottle, and that all his plays (though gorgias thought that one of them, the "seven against thebes," was full of mars) were bacchus's. for wine (according to plato), heating the soul together with the body, makes the body pliable, quick, and active, and opens the passages; while the fancies draw in discourse with boldness, and daring. for some have a good natural invention, yet whilst they are sober are too diffident and too close, but midst their wine, like frankincense, exhale and open at the heat. besides, wine expels all fear, which is the greatest hindrance to all consultations, and quencheth many other degenerate and lazy passions; it opens the rancor and malice, as it were, the two-leaved doors of the soul, and displays the whole disposition and qualities of any person in his discourse. freedom of speech, and, through that, truth it principally produceth; which it once wanting, neither quickness of wit nor experience availeth anything; and many proposing that which comes next rather hit the matter, than if they warily and designedly conceal their present sentiments. therefore there is no reason to fear that wine will stir up our affections; for it never stirs up the bad, unless in the worst men, whose judgment is never sober. but as theophrastus used to call the barbers' shops wineless entertainments; so there is a kind of an uncouth wineless drunkenness always excited either by anger, malice, emulation, or clownishness in the souls of the unlearned. now wine, blunting rather than sharpening many of these passions, doth not make them sots and foolish, but simple and ingenuous; not negligent of what is profitable, but desirous of what is good and honest. now those that think craft to be cunning, and vanity or closeness to be wisdom, have reason to think those that over a glass of wine plainly and ingenuously deliver their opinions to be fools. but, on the contrary, the ancients called the god the freer and loosener, and thought him considerable in divination; not, as euripides says, because he makes men raging mad, but because he looseth and frees the soul from all base distrustful fear, and puts them in a condition to speak truth freely to one another. book viii. those, my sossius senecio, who throw philosophy out of entertainments do worse than those who take away a light. for the candle being removed, the temperate and sober guests will not become worse than they were before, being more concerned to reverence than to see one another. but if dulness and disregard to good learning wait upon the wine, minerva's golden lamp itself could not make the entertainment pleasing and agreeable. for a company to sit silent and only cram themselves is, in good truth, swinish and almost impossible. but he that permits men to talk, yet doth not allow set and profitable discourses, is much more ridiculous than he who thinks that his guests should eat and drink, yet gives them foul wine, unsavory and nastily prepared meat. for no meat nor drink which is not prepared as it ought to be is so hurtful and unpleasant as discourse which is carried round in company insignificantly and out of season. the philosophers, when they would give drunkenness a vile name, call it doting by wine. now doting is to use vain and trifling discourse; and when such babbling is accompanied by wine, it usually ends in most disagreeable and rude contumely and reproach. it is a good custom therefore of our women, who in their feasts called agrionia seek after bacchus as if he were run away, but in a little time give over the search, and cry that he is fled to the muses and lurks with them; and some time after, when supper is done, put riddles and hard questions to one another. for this mystery teaches us, that midst our entertainments we should use learned and philosophical discourse, and such as hath a muse in it; and that such discourse being applied to drunkenness, everything that is brutish and outrageous in it is concealed, being pleasingly restrained by the muses. this book, being the eighth of my symposiacs, begins with that discourse in which about a year ago, on plato's birthday, i was concerned. question i. concerning those days in which some famous men were born; and also concerning the generation of the gods. diogenianus, plutarch, florus, tyndares. on the sixth day of may we celebrated socrates's birthday, and on the seventh plato's; and that first prompted us to such discourse as was suitable to the meeting, which diogenianus the pergamenian began thus: ion, said he, was happy in his expression, when he said that fortune, though much unlike wisdom, yet did many things very much like her; and that she seemed to have some order and design, not only in placing the nativities of these two philosophers so near together, but in setting the birthday of the most famous of the two first, who was also the master of the other. i had a great deal to say to the company concerning some notable things that fell out on the same day, as concerning the time of euripides's birth and death; for he was born the same day that the greeks beat xerxes by sea at salamis, and died the same day that dionysius the elder, the sicilian tyrant, was born,--fortune (as timaeus hath it) at the same time taking out of the world a representer, and bringing into it a real actor, of tragedies. besides, we remembered that alexander the king and diogenes the cynic died upon the same day. and all agreed that attalus the king died on his own birthday. and some said, that pompey the great was killed in egypt on his birthday, or, as others will have it, a day before. we remember pindar also, who, being born at the time of the pythian games, made afterwards a great many excellent hymns in honor of apollo. to this florus subjoined: now we are celebrating plato's nativity, why should we not mention carneades, the most famous of the whole academy, since both of them were born on apollo's feast; plato, whilst they were celebrating the thargelia at athens, carneades, whilst the cyrenians kept their carnea; and both these feasts are, upon the same day. nay, the god himself you (he continued), his priests and prophets, call hebdomagenes, as if he were born on the seventh day. and therefore those who make apollo plato's father do not, in my opinion, dishonor the god; since by socrates's as by another chiron's instructions he is become a physician for the diseases of the mind. and together with this, he mentioned that vision and voice which forbade aristo, plato's father, to come near or lie with his wife for ten months. to this tyndares the spartan subjoined: it is very fit we should apply that to plato, he seemed not sprung from mortal man, but god. ("iliad," xxiv. 258.) but, for my part, i am afraid to beget, as well as to be begotten, is repugnant to the incorruptibility of the deity. for that implies a change and passion; as alexander imagined, when he said that he knew himself to be mortal as often as he lay with a woman or slept. for sleep is a relaxation of the body, occasioned by the weakness of our nature; and all generation is a corruptive parting with some of our own substance. but yet i take heart again, when i hear plato call the eternal and unbegotten deity the father and maker of the world and all other begotten things; not as if he parted with any seed, but as if by his power he implanted a generative principle in matter, which acts upon, forms, and fashions it. winds passing through a hen will on occasions impregnate her; and it seems no incredible thing, that the deity, though not after the fashion of a man, but by some other certain communication, fills a mortal creature with some divine conception. nor is this my sense; but the egyptians who say apis was conceived by the influence of the moon, and make no question but that an immortal god may have communication with a mortal woman. but on the contrary, they think that no mortal can beget anything on a goddess, because they believe the goddesses are made of thin air, and subtle heat and moisture. question ii. what is plato's meaning, when he says that god always plays the geometer? diogenianus, tyndares, florus, autobulus. silence following this discourse, diogenianus began again and said: since our discourse is about the gods, shall we, especially on his own birthday, admit plato to the conference, and inquire upon what account he says (supposing it to be his sentence) that god always plays the geometer? i said that this sentence was not plainly set down in any of his books; yet there are good arguments that it is his, and it is very much like his expression. tyndares presently subjoining said: perhaps, diogenianus, you imagine that this sentence intimates some curious and difficult speculation, and not that which he hath so often mentioned, when he praiseth geometry as a science that takes off men from sensible objects, and makes them apply themselves to the intelligible and eternal nature, the contemplation of which is the end of philosophy, as the view of the initiatory mysteries into holy rites. for the nail of pain and pleasure, that fastens the soul to the body, seems to do us the greatest mischief, by making sensible things more powerful over us than intelligible, and by forcing the understanding to determine the rather according to passion than reason. for this faculty, being accustomed by the vehemency of pain or pleasure to be intent on the mutable and uncertain body, as if it really and truly were, grows blind as to that which really is, and loses that instrument and light of the soul, which is worth a thousand bodies, and by which alone the deity can be discovered. now in all sciences, as in plain and smooth mirrors, some marks and images of the truth of intelligible objects appear, but in geometry chiefly; which, according to philo, is the chief and principal of all, and doth bring back and turn the understanding, as it were, purged and gently loosened from sense. and therefore plato himself dislikes eudoxus, archytas, and menaechmus for endeavoring to bring down the doubling the cube to mechanical operations; for by this means all that was good in geometry would be lost and corrupted, it falling back again to sensible things, and not rising upward and considering immaterial and immortal images, in which god being versed is always god. after tyndares, florus, a companion of his, and who always jocosely pretended to be his admirer, said thus: sir, we are obliged to you for making your discourse not proper to yourself, but common to us all; for you have made it possible to disprove it by demonstrating that geometry is not necessary to the gods, but to us. now the deity doth not stand in need of science, as an instrument to withdraw his intellect from things created and to turn it to the real things; for these are all in him, with him, and about him. but pray consider whether plato, though you do not apprehend it, doth not intimate something that is proper and peculiar to you, mixing lycurgus with socrates, as much as dicaearchus thought he did pythagoras. for lycurgus, i suppose you know, banished out of sparta all arithmetical proportion, as being democratical and favoring the crowd; but introduced the geometrical, as agreeable to an oligarchy and kingly government that rules by law; for the former gives an equal share to every one according to number, but the other gives according to the proportion of the deserts. it doth not huddle all things together, but in it there is a fair discretion of good and bad, every one having what is fit for him, not by lot or weight, but according as he is virtuous or vicious. the same proportion, my dear tyndares, god introduceth, which is called [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], and which teacheth us to account that which is just equal, and not that which is equal just. for that equality which many affect, being often the greatest injustice, god, as much as possible, takes away; and useth that proportion which respects every man's deserts, geometrically defining it according to law and reason. this exposition we applauded; and tyndares, saying he envied him, desired autobulus to engage florus and confute his discourse. that he refused to do, but produced another opinion of his own. geometry, said he, considers nothing else but the accidents and properties of the extremities of bodies; neither did god make the world any other way than by terminating matter, which was infinite before. not that matter was actually without limits as to either magnitude or multitude; but the ancients used to call that infinite which by reason of its confusion and disorder is undetermined and unconfined. now the terms of everything that is formed or figured are the form and figure of that thing, and without which the thing would be formless and unfigured. now numbers and proportions being applied to matter, it is circumscribed and as it were bound up by lines, and through lines by surfaces and solids; and so were settled the first types and differences of bodies, as foundations from which to create the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth. for it was impossible that, out of an unsteady and confused matter, the equality of the sides, the likeness of the angles, and the exact proportion of octahedrons, icosahedrons, pyramids, and cubes should be deduced, unless by some power that terminated and shaped every particle of matter. therefore, terms being fixed to that which was undetermined or infinite before, the whole became and still continues agreeable in all parts, and excellently terminated and mixed; the matter indeed always affecting an indeterminate state, and flying all geometrical confinement, but proportion terminating and circumscribing it, and dividing it into several differences and forms, out of which all things that arise are generated and subsist. when he had said this, he desired me to contribute something to the discourse; and i applauded their conceits as their own devices, and very probable. but lest you despise yourselves (i continued) and altogether look for some external explication, attend to an exposition upon this sentence, which your masters very much approve. amongst the most geometrical theorems, or rather problems, this is one: two figures being given, to describe a third, which shall be equal to one and similar to the other. and it is reported that pythagoras, upon the discovery of this problem, offered a sacrifice to the gods; for this is a much more exquisite theorem than that which lays down, that the square of the hypothenuse in a right-angled triangle is equal to the squares of the two sides. right, said diogenianus, but what is this to the present question? you will easily understand, i replied, if you call to mind how timaeus divides that which gave the world its beginning into three parts. one of which is justly called god, the other matter, and the third form. that which is called matter is the most confused subject, the form the most beautiful pattern, and god the best of causes. now this cause, as far as possible, would leave nothing infinite and indeterminate, but adorn nature with number, measure, and proportion making one thing of all the subjects together, equal to the matter, and similar to the form. therefore proposing to himself this problem, he made and still makes a third, and always preserves it equal to the matter, and like the form; and that is the world. and this world, being in constant changes and alterations because of the natural necessity of body, is helped and preserved by the father and maker of all things, who by proportion terminates the substance according to the pattern. question iii. why noises are better heard in the night than the day. ammonius, boethus, plutarch, thrasyllus, aristodemus. when we supped with ammonius at athens, who was then the third time captain of the city-bands, there was a great noise about the house, some without doors calling, captain! captain! after he had sent his officers to quiet the tumult, and had dispersed the crowd, we began to inquire what was the reason that those that are within doors hear those that are without, but those that are without cannot hear those that are within as well. and ammonius said, that aristotle had given a reason for that already; for the sound of those within, being carried without into a large tract of air, grows weaker presently and is lost; but that which comes in from without is not subject to the like casualty, but is kept close, and is therefore more easy to be heard. but that seemed a more difficult question, why sounds seem greater in the night than in the day, and yet altogether as clear. for my own part (continued he) i think providence hath very wisely contrived that our hearing should be quickest when our sight can do us very little or no service; for the air of the "blind and solitary night," as empedocles calls it, being dark, supplies in the ears that defect of sense which it makes in the eyes. but since of natural effects we should endeavor to find the causes, and to discover what are the material and mechanical principles of things is the proper task of a natural philosopher, who shall first give us a rational account hereof? boethus began, and said: when i was a novice in letters, i then made use of geometrical postulates, and assumed as undoubted truths some undemonstrated suppositions; and now i shall make use of some propositions which epicurus hath demonstrated already. bodies move in a vacuum, and there are a great many spaces interspersed among the atoms of the air. now when the air being rarefied is more extended, so as to fill the vacant space, there are only a few vacuities scattered and interspersed among the particles of matter; but when the atoms of air are condensed and laid close together, they leave a vast empty space, convenient and sufficient for other bodies to pass through. now the coldness of the night makes such a constipation. heat opens and separates parts of condensed bodies, and therefore bodies that boil, grow soft, or melt, require a greater space than before; but, on the contrary, the parts of the body that are condensed or freeze are contracted closer to one another, and leave those vessels and places from which they retired partly empty. now the sound, meeting and striking against a great many bodies in its way, is either altogether lost or scattered, and very much and very frequently hindered in its passage; but when it hath a plain and smooth way through an empty space, and comes to the ear uninterrupted, the passage is so sudden, that it preserves its articulate distinctness, as well as the words it carries. you may observe that empty vessels, when knocked, answer presently, send out a noise to a great distance, and oftentimes the sound whirled round in the hollow breaks out with a considerable force; whilst a vessel that is filled either with a liquid or a solid body will not answer to a stroke, because the sound hath no room or passage to come through. and among solid bodies themselves, gold and stone, because they want pores, can hardly be made to sound; and when a noise is made by a stroke upon them, it is very flat, and presently lost. but brass is sounding, it being a porous, rare, and light metal, not consisting of parts tightly compacted, but being mixed with a yielding and uncompacted substance, which gives free passage to other motions, and kindly receiving the sound sends it forward; till some touching the instrument do, as it were, seize on it in the way, and stop the hollow; for then, by reason of the hindering force, it stops and goes no further. and this, in my opinion, is the reason why the night is more sonorous, and the day less; since in the day, the heat rarefying the air makes the empty spaces between the particles to be very little. but, pray, let none argue against the suppositions i assumed. and i (ammonius bidding me oppose him) said: sir, your suppositions which demand a vacuum to be granted i shall admit; but you err in supposing that a vacuum is conducive either to the preservation or conveyance of sound. for that which cannot be touched, acted upon, or struck is peculiarly favorable to silence. but sound is a stroke of a sounding body; and a sounding body is that which has homogeneousness and uniformity, and is easy to be moved, light, smooth, and, by reason of its tenseness and continuity, it is obedient to the stroke; and such is the air. water, earth, and fire are of themselves soundless; but each of them makes a noise when air falls upon or gets into it. and brass hath no vacuum; but being mixed with a smooth and gentle air it answers to a stroke, and is sounding. if the eye may be judge, iron must be reckoned to have a great many vacuities, and to be porous like a honey-comb, yet it is the dullest, and sounds worse than any other metal. therefore there is no need to trouble the night to contract and condense its air, that in other parts we may leave vacuities and wide spaces; as if the air would hinder and corrupt the substance of the sounds, whose very substance, form, and power itself is. besides, if your reason held, misty and extreme cold nights would be more sonorous than those which are temperate and clear, because then the atoms in our atmosphere are constipated, and the spaces which they left remain empty; and, what is more obvious, a cold day should be more sonorous than a warm summer's night; neither of which is true. therefore, laying aside that explication, i produce anaxagoras, who teacheth that the sun makes a tremulous motion in the air, as is evident from those little motes which are seen tossed up and down and flying in the sunbeams. these (says he), being in the day-time whisked about by the heat, and making a humming noise, lessen or drown other sounds; but at night their motion, and consequently their noise, ceaseth. when i had thus said, ammonius began: perhaps it will look like a ridiculous attempt in us, to endeavor to confute democritus and correct anaxagoras. yet we must not allow that humming noise to anaxagoras's little motes, for it is neither probable nor necessary. but their tremulous and whirling motion in the sunbeams is oftentimes sufficient to disturb and break a sound. for the air (as hath been already said), being itself the body and substance of sound, if it be quiet and undisturbed, makes a straight, easy, and continuous way to the particles or the motions which make the sound. thus sounds are best heard in calm still weather; and the contrary is seen in stormy weather, as simonides hath it:- no tearing tempests rattled through the skies, which hinder sweet discourse from mortal ears. for often the disturbed air hinders the articulateness of a discourse from coming to the ears, though it may convey something of the loudness and length of it. now the night, simply considered in itself, hath nothing that may disturb the air; though the day hath,--namely the sun, according to the opinion of anaxagoras. to this thrasyllus, ammonius's son, subjoining said: what is the matter, for god's sake, that we endeavor to solve this difficulty by the unintelligible fancied motion of the air, and neglect the tossing and divulsion thereof, which are evident? for jupiter, the great ruler above, doth not covertly and silently move the little particles of air; but as soon as he appears, he stirs up and moves everything. he sends forth lucky signs, and stirs up nations to their proper work, and they obey; and (as democritus saith) with fresh thoughts for each new day, as if newly born again, they fall to their worldly concerns with noisy and effectual contrivances. and upon this account, ibycus oppositely calls the dawning [greek omitted] (from [greek omitted], to hear), because then men first begin to hear and speak. now at night, all things being at rest, the air being quiet and undisturbed must therefore probably transmit the voice better, and convey it whole and unbroken to our ears. aristodemus the cyprian, being then in the company, said: but consider, sir, whether battles or the marches of great armies by night do not confute your reason; for the noise they make seems as loud as otherwise, though then the air is broken and very much disturbed. but the reason is partly in ourselves; for our voice at night is usually vehement, we either commanding others to do something or asking short questions with heat and concern. for that, at the same time when nature requires rest, we should stir to do or speak anything, there must be some great and urgent necessity for it; and thence our voices become more vehement and loud. question iv. why, when in the sacred games one sort of garland was given in one, and another in another, the palm was common to all. and why they call the great dates [greek omitted]. sospis, herodes, protogenes, praxiteles, caphisus. the isthmian games being celebrated, when sospis was the second time director of the solemnity, we avoided other entertainments,--he treating a great many strangers and often all his fellow-citizens,--but once, when he entertained his nearest and most learned friends at his own house, i was one of the company. after the first course, one coming to herodes the rhetorician brought a palm and a wreathed crown, which one of his acquaintance, who had won the prize for an encomiastic exercise, sent him. this herodes received very kindly, and sent it back again, but added that he could not tell the reason why, since each of the games gave a particular garland, yet all of them bestowed the palm. for those do not satisfy me (said he) who say that the equality of the leaves is the reason, which growing out one against another seem to resemble some striving for the prize, and that victory is called [greek omitted] from [greek omitted], not to yield. for a great many other trees, almost by measure and weight dividing the nourishment to their leaves growing opposite to one another, show a decent order and wonderful equality. they seem to speak more probably who say the ancients were pleased with the beauty and figure of the tree. thus homer compares nausicaa to a palm-branch. for you all know very well, that some threw roses at the victors, and others pomegranates and apples, to honor and reward them. but now the palm hath nothing evidently more taking than many other things, since here in greece it bears no fruit that is good to eat, it not ripening and growing mature enough. but if, as in syria and egypt, it bore a fruit that is the most pleasant to the eyes of anything in the world, and the sweetest to the taste, then i must confess nothing could compare with it. and the persian monarch (as the story goes), being extremely taken with nicolaus the peripatetic philosopher, who was a very sweet-humored man, tall and slender, and of a ruddy complexion, called the greatest and fairest dates nicolai. this discourse of herodes seemed to give occasion for a query about nicolaus, which would be as pleasant as the former. therefore, said sospis, let every one carefully give his sentiments of the matter before us. i begin, and think that, as far as possible, the honor of the victor should remain fresh and immortal. now a palm-tree is the longest lived of any, as this line of orpheus testifies:- they lived like branches of a leafy palm. and this almost alone has the privilege (though it is said to belong to many besides) of having always fresh and the same leaves. for neither the laurel nor the olive nor the myrtle, nor any other of those trees named evergreen, is always to be seen with the very same leaves; but as the old fall, new ones grow. so cities continue the same, where new parts succeed those that decay. but the palm, never shedding a leaf, is continually adorned with the same green. and this power of the tree, i believe, men think agreeable to, and fit to represent, the strength of victory. when sospis had done, protogenes the grammarian, calling praxiteles the commentator by his name, said. what then, shall we suffer those rhetoricians to be thought to have hit the mark when they bring arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? and can we produce nothing from history to club to this discourse? lately, i remember, reading in the attic annals, i found that theseus first instituted games in delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which was called spadix (from [greek omitted] to tear). and praxiteles said: this is not certain; but perhaps some will demand of theseus himself, upon what account when he instituted the game, he broke off a branch of palm rather than of laurel or of olive. but consider whether this be not a prize proper to the pythian games, as appropriate to amphictyon. for there they first, in honor of the god, crowned the victors with laurel and palm, as consecrating to the god, not the laurel or olive, but the palm. so nicias did, who defrayed the charges of the solemnity in the name of the athenians at delos the athenians themselves at delphi; and before these, cypselus the corinthian. for this god is a lover of games, and delights in contending for the prize at harping, singing, and throwing the bar, and, as some say, at cuffing; and assists men when contending, as homer witnesseth, by making achilles speak thus, let two come forth in cuffing stout, and try to which apollo gives the victory. ("iliad," xxiii. 659.) and amongst the archers, he that made his address to apollo made the best shot, and he that forgot to pray to him missed the mark. and besides, it is not likely that the athenians would rashly, and upon no grounds, dedicate their place of exercise to apollo. but they thought that the god which bestows health gives likewise a vigorous constitution, and strength for the encounter. and since some of the encounters are light and easy, others laborious and difficult, the delphians offered sacrifices to apollo the cuffer; the cretans and spartans to apollo the racer; and the dedication of spoils taken in the wars and trophies to apollo pythias show that he is of great power to give victory in war. whilst he was speaking, caphisus, theon's son, interrupted him, and said: this discourse smells neither of history nor comment, but is taken out of the common topics of the peripatetics, and endeavors to persuade; besides, you should, like the tragedians, raise your machine, and fright all that contradict you with the god. but the god, as indeed it is requisite he should be, is equally benevolent to all. now let us, following sospis (for he fairly leads the way), keep close to our subject, the palm-tree, which affords us sufficient scope for our discourse. the babylonians celebrate this tree, as being useful to them three hundred and sixty several ways. but to us greeks it is of very little use, but its lack of fruit makes it appropriate for contenders in the games. for being the fairest, greatest, and best proportioned of all sorts of trees, it bears no fruit amongst us; but by reason of its strong nature it exhausts all its nourishment (like an athlete) upon its body, and so has very little, and that very bad, left for seed. besides all this, it hath something peculiar, which cannot be attributed to any other tree. the branch of a palm, if you put a weight upon it, doth not yield and bend downwards, but turns the contrary way as if it resisted the pressing force. the like is to be observed in these exercises. for those who, through weakness or cowardice, yield to them, their adversaries oppress; but those who stoutly endure the encounter have not only their bodies, but their minds too, strengthened and increased. question v. why those that sail upon the nile take up the water they are to use before day. one demanded a reason why the sailors take up the water for their occasions out of the river nile by night, and not by day. some thought they feared the sun, which heating the liquid would make it more liable to putrefaction. for everything that is warmed becomes more easy to be changed, having already suffered when its natural quality was remitted. and cold constipating the parts seems to preserve everything in its natural state, and water especially. for that the cold of water is naturally constringent is evident from snow, which keeps flesh from corrupting a long time. and heat, as it destroys the proper quality of other things, so of honey, for it being boiled is itself corrupted, though when raw it preserves other bodies from corruption. and that this is the cause, i have a very considerable evidence from standing pools; for in winter they are as wholesome as other water, but in summer they grow bad and noxious. therefore the night seeming in some measure to resemble the winter, and the day the summer, they think the water that is taken up at night is less subject to be vitiated and changed. to these seemingly probable reasons another was added, which confirmed the ingenuity of the sailors by a very strong proof. for some said that they took up their water by night because then it was clear and undisturbed; but at day-time, when a great many fetched water together, and many boats were sailing and many beasts swimming upon the nile, it grew thick and muddy, and in that condition it was more subject to corruption. for mixed bodies are more easily corrupted than simple and unmixed; for from mixture proceeds disagreement of the parts, from that disagreement a change, and corruption is nothing else but a certain change; and therefore painters call the mixing of their colors [greek omitted], corrupting; and homer expresseth dyeing by [greek omitted] (to stain or contaminate). commonly we call anything that is simple and unmixed incorruptible and immortal. now earth being mixed with water soonest corrupts its proper qualities, and makes it unfit for drinking; and therefore standing water stinks soonest, being continually filled with particles of earth, whilst running waters preserve themselves by either leaving behind or throwing off the earth that falls into them. and hesiod justly commends the water of a pure and constant spring. for that water is wholesome which is not corrupted, and that is not corrupted which is pure and unmixed. and this opinion is very much confirmed from the difference of earths; for those springs that run through a mountainous, rocky ground are stronger than those which are cut through plains or marshes, because they do not take off much earth. now the nile running through a soft country, like the blood mingled with the flesh, is filled with sweet juices that are strong and very nourishing; yet it is thick and muddy, and becomes more so if disturbed. for motion mixeth the earthly particles with the liquid, which, because they are heavier, fall to the bottom as soon as the water is still and undisturbed. therefore the sailors take up the water they are to use at night, by that means likewise preventing the sun, which always exhales and consumes the subtler and lighter particles of the liquid. question vi. concerning those who come late to an entertainment; and from whence these words, [greek omitted] and, [greek omitted] are derived. plutarch's sons, theon's sons, theon, plutarch, soclarus. my younger sons staying too long at the plays, and coming in too late to supper, theon's sons waggishly and jocosely called them supper hinderers, night-suppers, and the like; and they in reply called their runners-to-supper. and one of the old men in the company said [greek omitted] signified one that was too late for supper; because, when he found himself tardy, he mended his pace, and made more than common haste. and he told us a jest of battus, caesar's jester, who called those that came late supper-lovers, because out of their love to entertainments, though they had business, they would not desire to be excused. and i said, that polycharmus, a leading orator at athens, in his apology for his way of living before the assembly, said: besides a great many things which i could mention, fellow-citizens, when i was invited to supper, i never came the last man. for this is more democratical; and on the contrary, those that are forced to stay for others that come late are offended at them as uncivil and of an oligarchical temper. but soclarus, in defence of my sons, said: alcaeus (as the story goes) did not call pittacus a night-supper for supping late, but for delighting in base and scandalous company. heretofore to eat early was accounted scandalous, and such a meal was called [greek omitted], from [greek omitted] intemperance. then theon interrupting him said: not at all, if we must trust those who have delivered down to us the ancients way of living. for they say that those being used to work, and very temperate in a morning, ate a bit of bread dipped in wine, and nothing else, and that they called that meal [greek omitted] from the [greek omitted] (wine). their supper they called [greek omitted], because returning from their business they took it [greek omitted] (late). upon this we began to inquire whence those two meals [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] took their names. in homer [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] seem to be the same meal. for he says that eumaeus provided [greek omitted] by the break of day; and it is probable that [greek omitted] was so called from [greek omitted], because provided in the morning; and [greek omitted] was so named from [greek omitted], easing from their labor. for men used to take their [greek omitted] after they had finished their business, or whilst they were about it. and this may be gathered from homer, when he says, then when the woodman doth his supper dress. ("iliad," xi. 86.) but some perhaps will derive [greek omitted] from [greek omitted], easiest provided, because that meal is usually made upon what is ready and at hand; and [greek omitted] from [greek omitted], labored, because of the pains used in dressing it. my brother lamprias, being of a scoffing, jeering nature, said: since we are in a trifling humor, i can show that the latin names of these meals are a thousand times more proper than the greek; [greek omitted] supper, they call coena ([greek omitted]) from community; because they took their [greek omitted] by themselves, but their coena with their friends. [greek omitted] dinner, they call prandium, from the time of the dry; for [greek omitted] signifies noon-tide, and to rest after dinner is expressed by [greek omitted]; or else by prandium they denote a bit taken in the morning, [greek omitted], before they have need of any. and not to mention stragula, from [greek omitted], vinum from [greek omitted], oleum from [greek omitted], mel from [greek omitted], gustare from [greek omitted], propinare from [greek omitted], and a great many more words which they have plainly borrowed from the greeks,--who can deny but that they have taken their comessatio, banqueting, from our [greek omitted] and miscere, to mingle, from the greeks too? thus in homer, she in a bowl herself mixt ([greek omitted]) generous wine. ("odyssey," x. 356.) they call a table mensam, from [greek omitted], placing it in the middle; bread, panem, from satisfying [greek omitted], hunger; a garland, coronam, from [greek omitted], the head;--and homer somewhat likens [greek omitted], a head-piece, to a garland;--caedere, to beat, from [greek omitted]; and dentes, teeth, from [greek omitted]; lips they call labra, from [greek omitted], taking our victuals with them. therefore we must either listen to such fooleries as these without laughing, or not give them so ready entrance by means of words.... question vii. concerning pythagoras's symbols, in which he forbids us to receive a swallow into our house, and bids us as soon as we are risen to ruffle the bedclothes. sylla, lucius, plutarch, philinus. sylla the carthaginian, upon my return to rome after a long absence, gave me a welcoming supper, as the romans call it, and invited some few other friends, and among the rest, one lucius an etrurian, the scholar of moderatus the pythagorean. he seeing my friend philinus ate no flesh, began (as the opportunity was fair) to talk of pythagoras; and affirmed that he was a tuscan, not because his father, as others have said, was one, but because he himself was born, bred, and taught in tuscany. to confirm this, he brought considerable arguments from such symbols as these:--as soon as you are risen, ruffle the bedclothes; leave not the print of the pot in the ashes; receive not a swallow into your house; never step over a besom; nor keep in your house creatures that have hooked claws. for these precepts of the pythagoreans the tuscans only, as he said, carefully observe. lucius, having thus said, that precept about the swallow seemed to be most unaccountable, it being a harmless and kind animal; and therefore it seemed strange that that should be forbid the house, as well as the hooked-clawed animals, which are ravenous, wild, and bloody. nor did lucius himself approve that only interpretation of the ancients, who say, this symbol aims directly at backbiters and tale-bearing whisperers. for the swallow whispers not at all; it chatters indeed, and is noisy, but not more than a pie, a partridge, or a hen. what then, said sylla, is it upon the old fabulous account of killing her son, that they deny the swallow entertainment, by that means showing their dislike to those passions which (as the story goes) made tereus and procne and philomel both act and suffer such wicked and abominable things? and even to this day they call the birds daulides. and gorgias the sophister, when a swallow muted upon him, looked upon her and said, philomel, this was not well done. or perhaps this is all without foundation; for the nightingale, though concerned in the same tragedy, we willingly receive. perhaps, sir, said i, what you have alleged may be some reason; but pray consider whether first they do not hate the swallow upon the same account that they abhor hook-clawed animals. for the swallow feeds on flesh; and grasshoppers, which are sacred and musical, they chiefly devour and prey upon. and, as aristotle observes, they fly near the surface of the earth to pick up the little animals. besides, that alone of all house-animals makes no return for her entertainment. the stork, though she is neither covered, fed, nor defended by us, yet pays for the place where she builds, going about and killing the efts, snakes, and other venomous creatures. but the swallow, though she receives all those several kindnesses from us, yet, as soon as her young are fledged, flies away faithless and ungrateful; and (which is the worst of all) of all house-animals, the fly and the swallow only never grow tame, suffer a man to touch them, keep company with or learn of him. and the fly is so shy because often hurt and driven away; but the swallow naturally hates man, suspects, and dares not trust any that would tame her. and therefore,--if we must not look on the outside of these things, but opening them view the representations of some things in others,--pythagoras, setting the swallow for an example of a wandering, unthankful man, adviseth us not to take those who come to us for their own need and upon occasion into our familiarity, and let them partake of the most sacred things, our house and fire. this discourse of mine gave the company encouragement to proceed, so they attempted other symbols, and gave moral interpretations of them. for philinus said, that the precept of blotting out the print of the pot instructed us not to leave any plain mark of anger, but, as soon as ever the passion hath done boiling, to lay aside all thoughts of malice and revenge. that symbol which adviseth us to ruffle the bedclothes seemed to some to have no secret meaning, but to be in itself very evident; for it is not decent that the mark and (as it were) stamped image should remain to be seen by others, in the place where a man hath lain with his wife. but sylla thought the symbol was rather intended to prevent men's sleeping in the day-time, all the conveniences for sleeping being taken away in the morning as soon as we are up. for night is the time for sleep, and in the day we should rise and follow our affairs, and not suffer so much as the print of our body in the bed, since a man asleep is of no more use than one dead. and this interpretation seems to be confirmed by that other precept, in which the pythagoreans advise their followers not to take off any man's burthen from him, but to lay on more, as not countenancing sloth and laziness in any. question viii. why the pythagoreans command fish not to be eaten, more strictly than other animals. empedocles, sylla, lucius, tyndares, nestor. our former discourse lucius neither reprehended nor approved, but, sitting silent and musing, gave us the hearing. then empedocles addressing his discourse to sylla, said: if our friend lucius is displeased with the discourse, it is time for us to leave off; but if these are some of their mysteries which ought to be concealed, yet i think this may be lawfully divulged, that they more cautiously abstain from fish than from other animals. for this is said of the ancient pythagoreans; and even now i have met with alexicrates's scholars, who will eat and kill and even sacrifice some of the other animals, but will never taste fish. tyndares the spartan said, they spared fish because they had so great a regard for silence, and they called fish [greek omitted], because they had their voice shut up ([greek omitted]); and my namesake empedocles advised one who had been expelled from the school of pythagoras to shut up his mind like a fish, and they thought silence to be divine, since the gods without any voice reveal their meaning to the wise by their works. then lucius gravely and composedly saying, that perhaps the true reason was obscure and not to be divulged, yet they had liberty to venture upon probable conjectures, theon the grammarian began thus: to demonstrate that pythagoras was a tuscan is a great and no easy task. but it is confessed that he conversed a long time with the wise men of egypt, and imitated a great many of the rites and institutions of the priests, for instance, that about beans. for herodotus delivers, that the egyptians neither set nor eat beans, nay, cannot endure to see them; and we all know, that even now the priests eat no fish; and the stricter sort eat no salt, and refuse all meat that is seasoned with it. various reasons are offered for this; but the only true reason is hatred to the sea, as being a disagreeable, or rather naturally a destructive element to man. for they do not imagine that the gods, as the stoics did that the stars, were nourished by it. but, on the contrary, they think that the father and preserver of their country, whom they call the deflux of osiris, is lost in it; and when they bewail him as born on the left hand, and destroyed in the right-hand parts, they intimate to us the ending and corruption of their nile by the sea, and therefore they do not believe that its water is wholesome, or that any creature produced or nourished in it can be clean or wholesome food for man, since it breathes not the common air, and feeds not on the same food with him. and the air that nourisheth and preserves all other things is destructive to them, as if their production and life were unnecessary and against nature; nor should we wonder that they think animals bred in the sea to be disagreeable to their bodies, and not fit to mix with their blood and spirits, since when they meet a pilot they will not speak to him, because he gets his living by the sea. sylla commended this discourse, and added concerning the pythagoreans, that they then chiefly tasted flesh when they sacrificed to the gods. now no fish is ever offered in sacrifice. i, after they had done, said that many, both philosophers and unlearned, considering with how many good things it furnisheth and makes our life more comfortable, take the sea's part against the egyptians. but that the pythagoreans should abstain from fish because they are not of the same kind, is ridiculous and absurd; nay, to butcher and feed on other animals, because they bear a nearer relation to us, would be a most inhuman and cyclopean return. and they say that pythagoras bought a draught of fishes, and presently commanded the fishers to let them all out of the net; and this shows that, he did not hate or not mind fishes, as things of another kind and destructive to man, but that they were his dearly beloved creatures, since he paid a ransom for their freedom. therefore the tenderness and humanity of those philosophers suggest a quite contrary reason, and i am apt to believe that they spare fishes to instruct men, or to accustom themselves to acts of justice; for other creatures generally give men cause to afflict them, but fishes neither do nor are capable of doing us any harm. and it is easy to show, both from the writings and religion of the ancients, that they thought it a great sin not only to eat but to kill an animal that did them no harm. but afterwards, being necessitated by the spreading multitude of men, and commanded (as they say) by the delphic oracle to prevent the total decay of corn and fruit, they began to sacrifice, yet they were so disturbed and concerned at the action, that they called it [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] (to do), as if they did some strange thing in killing an animal; and they are very careful not to kill the beast before the wine has been cast upon his head and he nods in token of consent. so very cautious are they of injustice. and not to mention other considerations, were no chickens (for instance) or hares killed, in a short time they would so increase that there could be no living. and now it would be a very hard matter to put down the eating of flesh, which necessity first introduced, since pleasure and luxury hath espoused it. but the water-animals neither consuming any part of our air or water, or devouring the fruit, but as it were encompassed by another world, and having their own proper bounds, which it is death for them to pass, they afford our belly no pretence at all for their destruction; and therefore to catch or be greedy after fish is plain deliciousness and luxury, which upon no just reason unsettle the sea and dive into the deep. for we cannot call the mullet corn-destroying, the trout grape-eating, nor the barbel or seapike seed-gathering, as we do some land-animals, signifying their hurtfulness by these epithets. nay, those little mischiefs which we complain of in these house-creatures, a weasel or fly, none can justly lay upon the greatest fish. therefore the pythagoreans, confining themselves not only by the law which forbids them to injure men, but also by nature, which commands them to do violence to nothing, fed on fish very little, or rather not at all. but suppose there were no injustice in this case, yet to delight in fish would argue daintiness and luxury; because they are such costly and unnecessary diet. therefore homer doth not only make the greeks whilst encamped near the hellespont, eat no fish, but he mentions not any sea-provision that the dissolute phaeacians or luxurious wooers had, though both islanders. and ulysses's mates, though they sailed over so much sea, as long as they had any provision left, never let down a hook or net. but when the victuals of their ship was spent, ("odyssey," xii. 329-332.) a little before they fell upon the oxen of the sun, they caught fish, not to please their wanton appetite, but to satisfy their hunger,- with crooked hooks, for cruel hunger gnawed. the same necessity therefore forced them to catch fish and devour the oxen of the sun. therefore not only among the egyptian and syrians but greeks too, to abstain from fish was a piece of sanctity, they avoiding (as i think), a superfluous curiosity in diet, as well as being just. to this nestor subjoining said: but sir, of my citizens as of the megarians in the proverb, you make no account; although you have heard me often say that our priests of neptune (whom we call hieromnemons) never eat fish. for neptune himself is called the breeder. and the race of hellen sacrificed to neptune as the first father, imagining, as likewise the syrians did, that man rose from a liquid substance. and therefore they worship a fish as of the same production and breeding with themselves, in this matter being more happy in their philosophy than anaximander; for he says that fish and men were not produced in the same substances, but that men were first produced in fishes, and, when they were grown up and able to help themselves, were thrown out, and so lived upon the land. therefore, as the fire devours its parents, that is, the matter out of which it was first kindled, so anaximander, asserting that fish were our common parents, condemneth our feeding on them. question ix. whether there can be new diseases, and how caused. philo, diogenianus, plutarch. philo the physician stoutly affirmed that the elephantiasis was a disease but lately known; since none of the ancient physicians speak one word of it, though they oftentimes enlarge upon little, frivolous and obscure trifles. and i, to confirm it, cited athenodorus the philosopher, who in his first book of epidemical diseases says, that not only that disease, but also the hydrophobia or water-dread (occasioned by the biting of a mad dog), were first discovered in the time of asclepiades. at this the whole company were amazed, thinking it very strange that such diseases should begin then, and yet as strange that they should not be taken notice of in so long a time; yet most of them leaned to this last opinion, as being most agreeable to man, not in the least daring to imagine that nature affected novelties, or would in the body of man, as in a city, create new disturbances and tumults. and diogenianus added, that even the passions and diseases of the mind go on in the same old road that formerly they did; and yet the viciousness of our inclination is exceedingly prone to variety, and our mind is mistress of itself, and can, if it please, easily change and alter. yet all her inordinate motions have some sort of order, and the soul hath bounds to her passions, as the sea to her overflowings. and there is no sort of vice now among us which was not practised by the ancients. there are a thousand differences of appetites and various motions of fear; the schemes of grief and pleasure are innumerable. yet are not they of late or now produced, and none can tell from whence they first arose. (sophocles, "antigone," 456.) how then should the body be subject to new diseases, since it hath not, like the soul, the principle of its own alteration in itself, but by common causes is joined to nature, and receives a temperature whose infinite variety of alterations is confined to certain bounds, like a ship moving and tossing in a circle about its anchor. now there can be no disease without some cause, it being against the laws of nature that anything should be without a cause. now it will be very hard to find a new cause, unless we fancy some strange air, water, or food never tasted by the ancients, should out of other worlds or intermundane spaces descend to us. for we contract diseases from those very things which preserve our life; since there are no peculiar seeds of diseases, but the disagreement of their juices to our bodies, or our excess in using them, disturbs nature. these disturbances have still the very same differences, though now and then called by new names. for names depend on custom, but the passions on nature; and these being constant and those variable, this error has arisen. as, in the parts of a speech and the syntax of the words, some new sort of barbarism or solecism can suddenly arise; so the temperature of the body hath certain deviations and corruptions into which it may fall, those things which are against and hurtful to nature being in some sort existent in nature herself. the mythographers are in this particular very ingenious, for they say that monstrous uncouth animals were produced in the time of the giants war, the moon being out of its course, and not rising where it used to do. and those who think nature produces new diseases like monsters, and yet give neither likely nor unlikely reasons of the change, err, as i imagine, my dear philo, in taking a less or a greater degree of the same disease to be a different disease. the intension or increase of a thing makes it more or greater, but does not make the subject of another kind. thus the elephantiasis, being an intense scabbiness, is not a new kind; nor is the water-dread distinguished from other melancholic and stomachical affections but only by the degree. and i wonder we did not observe that homer was acquainted with this disease, for it is evident that he calls a dog rabid from the very same rage with which when men are possessed they are said to be mad. against this discourse of diogenianus philo himself made some objections, and desired me to be the old physicians' patron; who must be branded with inadvertency and ignorance, unless it appears that those diseases began since their time. first then diogenianus, methinks, very precariously desires us to think that the intenseness or remissness of degrees is not a real difference, and does not alter the kind. for, were this true, then we should hold that downright vinegar is not different from pricked wine, nor a bitter from a rough taste, darnel from wheat, nor garden-mint from wild mint. for it is evident that these differences are only the several degrees of the same qualities, in some being more intense, in some more remiss. so we should not venture to affirm that flame is different from a white spirit, sunshine from flame, hoarfrost from dew, or hail from rain; but that the former have only more intense qualities than the latter. besides, we should say that blindness is of the same kind with short-sightedness, violent vomiting (or cholera) with weakness of the stomach, and that they differ only in degree. though what they say is nothing to the purpose; for if they allow the increase in intensity and strength, but assert that this came but now of late,--the novelty showing itself in the quantity rather than the quality,--the same difficulties which they urged against the other opinion oppress them. sophocles says very well concerning those things which are not believed to be now, because they were not heretofore,- once at the first all things their being had. and it is probable that not all diseases, as in a race, the barrier being let down, started together; but that one rising after another, at some certain time, had its beginning and showed itself. it is rational but afterwards overeating, luxury, and surfeiting, encouraged by ease and plenty, raised bad and superfluous juices, and those brought various new diseases, and their perpetual complications and mixtures still create more new. whatever is natural is determined and in order; for nature is order, or the work of order. disorder, like pindar's sand, cannot be comprised by number, and that which is beside nature is straight called indeterminate and infinite. thus truth is simple, and but one; but falsities innumerable. the exactness of motions and harmony are definite, but the errors either in playing upon the harp, singing, or dancing, who can comprehend? indeed phrynichus the tragedian says of himself, as many figures dancing doth propose as waves roll on the sea when tempests toss. and chrysippus says that the various complications of ten single axioms amount to 1,000,000. but hipparchus hath confuted that account, showing that the affirmative contains 101,049 complicated propositions, and the negative 310,952. and xenocrates says, the number of syllables which the letters will make is 100,200,000. how then is it strange that the body, having so many different powers in itself, and getting new qualities every day from its meat and drink, and using those motions and alterations which are not always in the same time nor in the same order, should upon the various complications of all these be affected with new diseases? such was the plague at athens described by thucydides, who conjectures that it was new because that birds and beasts of prey would not touch the dead carcasses. those that fell sick about the red sea, if we believe agatharcides, besides other strange and unheard diseases, had little serpents in their legs and arms, which did eat their way out, but when touched shrunk in again, and raised intolerable inflammations in the muscles; and yet this kind of plague, as likewise many others, never afflicted any beside, either before or since. one, after a long stoppage of urine, voided a knotty barley straw. and we know that ephebus, with whom we lodged at athens, threw out, together with a great deal of seed, a little hairy, many-footed, nimble animal. and aristotle tells us, that timon's nurse in cilicia every year for two months lay in a cave, without any vital operation besides breathing. and in the menonian books it is delivered as a symptom of a diseased liver carefully to observe and hunt after mice and rats, which we see now nowhere practised. therefore let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted; for the cause of those accidents is the nature of our body, whose temperature is subject to be changed. therefore, if diogenianus will not introduce a new kind of water or air, we, having no need of it, are very well content. yet we know some of democritus's scholars affirm that, other worlds being dissolved, some strange effluvia fall into ours, and are the principle of new plagues and uncommon diseases. but let us not now take notice of the corruption of some parts of this world by earthquake, droughts, and floods, by which both the vapors and fountains rising out of the earth must be necessarily corrupted. yet we must not pass by that change which must be wrought in the body by our meat, drink, and other exercises in our course of life. for many things which the ancients did not feed on are now accounted dainties; for instance, mead and swine's belly. heretofore too, as i have heard, they hated the brain of animals so much, that they detested the very name of it; as when homer says, "i esteem him at a brain's worth." and even now we know some old men, not bearing to taste cucumber, melon, orange, or pepper. now by these meats and drinks it is probable that the juices of our bodies are much altered, and their temperature changed, new qualities arising from this new sort of diet. and the change of order in our feeding having a great influence on the alteration of our bodies, the cold courses, as they were called formerly, consisting of oysters, polyps, salads, and the like, being (in plato's phrase) transferred "from tail to mouth," now make the first course, whereas they were formerly the last. besides, the glass which we usually take before supper is very considerable in this case; for the ancients never drank so much as water before they ate, but now we drink freely before we sit down, and fall to our meat with a full and heated body, using sharp sauces and pickles to provoke appetite, and then we fall greedily on the other meat. but nothing conduceth more to alterations and new diseases in the body than our different baths; for here the flesh, like iron in the fire, grows soft and loose, and is presently constipated and hardened by the cold. for, in my opinion, if any of the last age had looked into our baths, he might have justly said, there burning phlegethon meets acheron. for they used such mild gentle baths, that alexander the great being feverish slept in one. and the gauls' wives carry their pots of pulse to eat with their children whilst they are in the bath. but our baths now inflame, vellicate, and distress; and the air which we draw is a mixture of air and water, disturbs the whole body, tosses and displaces every atom, till we quench the fiery particles and allay their heat. therefore, diogenianus, you see that this account requires no new strange causes, no intermundane spaces; but the single alteration of our diet is enough to raise new diseases and abolish old. question x. why we give least credit to dreams in autumn. florus, plutarch, plutarch's sons, favorinus. florus reading aristotle's physical problems, which were brought to him to thermopylae, was himself (as philosophical wits used to be) filled with a great many doubts, and communicated them to others; thereby confirming aristotle's saying, that much learning raises many doubts. other topics made our walks every day very pleasant, but the common saying concerning dreams,--that those in autumn are the vainest,--i know not how, whilst favorinus was engaged in other matters, was started after supper. your friends and my sons thought aristotle had given sufficient satisfaction in this point, and that no other cause was to be sought after or allowed but that which he mentions, the fruit. for the fruit, being new and flatulent, raises many disturbing vapors in the body; for it is not likely that only wine ferments, or new oil only makes a noise in the lamp, the heat agitating its vapor; but new corn and all sorts of fruit are plump and distended, till the unconcocted flatulent vapor is broke away. and that some sorts of food disturb dreams they said, was evident from beans and the polypus's head, from which those who would divine by their dreams are commanded to abstain. but favorinus himself, though in all other things he admires aristotle exceedingly and thinks the peripatetic philosophy to be most probable, yet in this case resolved to scour up an old musty opinion of democritus. he first laid down that known principle of his, that images pass through the pores into the inmost parts of the body, and being carried upward cause dreams; and that these images fly from everything, vessels, garments, plants, but especially from animals, because of their heat and the motion of their spirits; and that these images not only carry the outward shape and likeness of the bodies (as epicurus thinks, following democritus so far and no farther), but the very designs, motions, and passions of the soul; and with those entering into the bodies, as if they were living things, discover to those that receive them the thoughts and inclinations of the persons from whom they come, if so be that they preserve their frame and order entire. and that is especially preserved when the air is calm and clear, their passage then being quick and undisturbed. now the autumnal air, when trees shed their leaves, being very uneven and disturbed, ruffles and disorders the images, and, hindering them in their passage, makes them weak and ineffectual; when, on the contrary, if they rise from warm and vigorous subjects, and are presently applied, the notices which they give and the impressions they make are clear and evident. then with a smile looking upon autobulus, he continued: but, sir, i perceive you design to have an airy skirmish with these images, and try the excellence of this old opinion, as you would a picture, by your nail. and autobulus replied: pray, sir, do not endeavor to cheat us any longer; for we know very well that you, designing to make aristotle's opinion appear the better, have used this of democritus only as its shade. therefore i shall pass by that, and impugn aristotle's opinion, which unjustly lays the blame on the new fruit. for both the summer and the early autumn witness in its favor, when, as antimachus says, the fruit is most fresh and juicy; for then, though we eat the new fruit, yet our dreams are not so vain as at other times. and the months when the leaves fall, being next to winter, so concoct the corn and remaining fruit, that they grow shrivelled and less, and lose all their brisk agitating spirit. as for new wine, those that drink it soonest forbear till february, which is after winter; and the day on which we begin we call the day of the good genius, and the athenians the day of cask-opening. for whilst wine is working, we see that even common, laborers will not venture on it. therefore no more accusing the gifts of the gods, let us seek after another cause of vain dreams, to which the name of the season will direct us. for it is called leaf-shedding, because the leaves then fall off by reason of their dryness and coldness; except the leaves of hot and oily trees, as of the olive, the laurel, or the palm; or of the moist, as of the myrtle and the ivy. but the temperature of these preserves them, though not others; because in others the vicious humor that holds the leaves is constipated by the cold, or being weak and little is dried up. now moisture and heat are necessary for the growth and preservation of plants, but especially of animals; and on the contrary, coldness and dryness are very noxious to both. and therefore homer elegantly calls men moist and juicy: to rejoice he calls to be warmed; and anything that is grievous and frightful he calls cold and icy. besides, the words [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] are applied to the dead, those names intimating their extreme dryness. but more, our blood, the principal thing in our whole body, is moist and hot. and old age hath neither of those two qualities. now the autumn seems to be as it were the old age of the decaying year; for the moisture doth not yet fall, and the heat decays. and its inclining the body to diseases is an evident sign of its cold and dryness. now it is necessary that the souls should be indisposed with the bodies and that, the subtile spirit being condensed, the divining faculty of the soul, like a glass that is breathed upon, should be sullied; and therefore it cannot represent anything plain, distinct, and clear, as long as it remains thick, dark, and condensed. book ix this ninth book, sossius senecio, contains the discourses we held at athens at the muses feast, for this number nine is agreeable to the number of the muses. nor must you wonder when you find more than ten questions (which number i have observed in my other books) in it; for we ought to give the muses all that belongs to them, and be as careful of robbing them as of a temple, since we owe them much more and much better things than these. question i. concerning verses seasonably and unseasonably applied. ammonius, plutarch, erato, certain schoolmasters, and friends of ammonius. ammonius, captain of the militia at athens, would show diogenianus the proficiency of those youths that learned grammar, geometry, rhetoric, and music; and invited the chief masters of the town to supper. there were a great many scholars at the feast, and almost all his acquaintance. achilles invited only the single combatants to his feast, intending (as the story goes) that, if in the heat of the encounter they had conceived any anger or ill-will against one another, they might then lay it aside, being made partakers of one common entertainment. but the contrary happened to ammonius, for the contentions of the masters increased and grew more sharp midst their cups and merriment; and all was disorder and confused babbling. therefore ammonius commanded erato to sing to his harp, and he sang some part of hesiod's works beginning thus, contention to one sort is not confined; ("works and days," 11.) and i commended him for choosing so apposite a song. then he began to discourse about the seasonable use of verse, that it was not only pleasant but profitable. and straight every one's mouth was full of that poet who began ptolemy's epithalamium (when he married his sister, a wicked and abominable match) thus, jove juno called his sister and his wife; ("iliad," xviii. 356.) and another, who refused to sing after supper to demetrius the king, but after he sent him his young son philip to be educated sang thus, breed thou the boy as doth become both hercules's race and us; and anaxarchus who, being pelted with apples by alexander at supper, rose up and said, some god shall wounded be by mortal hand. (euripides, "orestes," 271.) but that corinthian captive boy excelled all, who, when the city was destroyed, and mummius, taking a survey of all the free-born children that understood letters, commanded each to write a verse, wrote thus:- thrice, four times blest, the happy greeks that fell. ("odyssey," v. 306.) for they say that mummius was affected with it, wept and gave all the free-born children that were allied to the boy their liberty. and some mentioned the wife of theodorus the tragedian, who refused his embraces a little before he contended for the prize; but, when he was conqueror and came in unto her, clasped him and said, now, agamemnon's son, you freely may (sophocles "electra," 2.) after this a great many sayings were mentioned as unseasonably spoken, it being fit that we should know such and avoid them;--as that to pompey the great, to whom, upon his return from a dangerous war, the schoolmaster brought his little daughter, and, to show him what a proficient she was, called for a book, and bade her begin at this line, returned from war; but hadst thou there been slain, my wish had been complete; ("iliad," iii. 428.) and that to cassius longinus, to whom a flying report of his son's dying abroad being brought, and he no ways appearing either to know the certain truth or to clear the doubt, an old senator came and said: longinus, will you not despise the flying uncertain rumor, as if you did not know nor had read this line, for no report is wholly false? (hesiod, "works and days," 763.) and he that at rhodes, to a grammarian demanding a line upon which he might show his skill in the theatre, proposed this, fly from the island, worst of all mankind, ("odyssey," x. 72.) either slyly put a trick upon him, or unwittingly blundered. and this discourse quieted the tumult. questions ii. and iii. what is the reason that alpha is placed first in the alphabet, and what is the proportion between the number of vowels and semi-vowels? ammonius, hermeas, protogenes, plutarch, zopyrion. it being the custom of the muses' feast to draw lots, and those that were matched to propose curious questions to one another, ammonius, fearing that two of the same profession might be matched together, ordered, without drawing lots, a geometrician to propose questions to a grammarian, and a master of music to a rhetorician. first, therefore, hermeas the geometrician demanded of protogenes the grammarian a reason why alpha was the first letter of the alphabet. and he returned the common answer of the schools, that it was fit the vowels should be set before the mutes and semi-vowels. and of the vowels, some being long, some short, some both long and short, it is just that the latter should be most esteemed. and of these that are long and short, that is to be set first which is usually placed before the other two, but never after either; and that is alpha. for that put after either iota or upsilon will not be pronounced, will not make one syllable with them, but as it were resenting the affront and angry at the position, seeks the first as its proper place. but if you place alpha before either of those, they are obedient, and quietly join in one syllable, as in these words, [greek omitted] and a thousand others. in these three respects therefore, as the conquerors in all the five exercises, it claims the precedence,--that of most other letters by being a vowel, that of other vowels by being dichronous, and lastly, that of these double-timed vowels themselves because it is its nature to go before and never after them. protogenes making a pause, ammonius, speaking to me, said: what! have you, being a boeotian, nothing to say for cadmus, who (as the story goes) placed alpha the first in order, because a cow is called alpha by the phoenicians, and they account it not the second or third (as hesiod doth) but the first of their necessary things? nothing at all, i replied, for it is just that, to the best of my power, i should rather assist my own than bacchus's grandfather. for lamprias my grandfather said, that the first articulate sound that is made is alpha; for the air in the mouth is formed and fashioned by the motion of the lips; now as soon as those are opened, that sound breaks forth, being very plain and simple, not requiring or depending upon the motion of the tongue, but gently breathed forth whilst that lies still. and therefore that is the first sound that children make. thus [greek omitted], to hear, [greek omitted], to sing, [greek omitted], to pipe, [greek omitted], to hollow, begin with the letter alpha; and i think that [greek omitted], to lift up, and [greek omitted], to open, were fitly taken from that opening and lifting up of the lips when his voice is uttered. thus all the names of the mutes besides one have an alpha, as it were a light to assist their blindness; for pi alone wants it, and phi and chi are only pi and kappa with an aspirate. hermeas saying that he approved both reasons, why then (continued i) do not you explain the proportion, if there be any, of the number of the letters; for, in my opinion, there is; and i think so, because the number of mutes and semi-vowels, compared between themselves or with the vowels, doth not seem casual and undesigned, but to be according to the first proportion which you call arithmetical. for their number being nine, eight, and seven, the middle exceeds the last as much as it wants of the first. and the first number being compared with the last, hath the same proportion that the muses have to apollo; for nine is appropriated to them, and seven to him. and these two numbers tied together double the middle; and not without reason, since the semi-vowels partake the power of both. and hermeas replied: it is said that mercury was the first god that discovered letters in egypt; and therefore the egyptians make the figure of an ibis, a bird dedicated to mercury, for the first letter. but it is not fit, in my opinion, to place an animal that makes no noise at the head of the letters. amongst all the numbers the fourth is peculiarly dedicated to mercury, because, as some say, the god was born on the fourth day of the month. and the first letters called phoenician from cadmus are four times four, or sixteen; and of those that were afterward added, palamedes found four, and simonides four more. now amongst numbers, three is the first perfect, as consisting of a first, a middle, and a last; and after that six, as being equal the sum of its own divisors (1+2+3). of these, six multiplied by four makes twenty-four; and also the first perfect number, three, multiplied by the first cube, eight, make the same. whilst he was discoursing thus, zopyrion the grammarian sneered and muttered between his teeth; and, as soon as he had done, cried out that he most egregiously trifled; for it was mere chance, and not design, that gave such a number and order to the letters, as it was mere chance that the first and last verses of homer's iliads have just as many syllables as the first and last of his odysseys. question iv. which of venus's hands diomedes wounded. hermeas, zopyrion, maximus. hermeas would have replied to zopyrion, but we desired him to hold; and maximus the rhetorician proposed to him this far-fetched question out of homer, which of venus's hands diomedes wounded. and zopyrion presently asking him again, of which leg was philip lame?--maximus replied, it is a different case, for demosthenes hath left us no foundation upon which we may build our conjecture. but if you confess your ignorance in this matter, others will show how the poet sufficiently intimates to an understanding man which hand it was. zopyrion being at a stand, we all, since he made no reply, desired maximus to tell us. and he began: the verses running thus then diomedes raised his mighty spear, and leaping towards her just did graze her hand; ("iliad," v. 335. it is evident from what follows that plutarch interprets [greek omitted] in this passage having leaped to one side. (g.)) it is evident that, if he designed to wound her left hand, there had been no need of leaping, since her left hand was opposite to his right. besides, it is probable that he would endeavor to wound the strongest hand, and that with which she drew away aeneas; and which being wounded, it was likely she would let him go. but more, after she returned to heaven, minerva jeeringly said, no doubt fair venus won a grecian dame, to follow her beloved trojan youths, and as she gently stroked her with her hand, her golden buckler scratched this petty wound. ("iliad", v. 422.) and i suppose, you sir, when you stroke any of your scholars, you use your right hand, and not your left; and it is likely that venus, the most skilful of all the goddesses, soothed the heroines after the same manner. question v. why plato says that ajax's soul came to draw her lot in the twentieth place in hell. hylas, sospis, ammonius, lamprias. these discourses made all the other company merry; but sospis the rhetorician, seeing hylas the grammarian sit silent and discomposed (for he had not been very happy in his exercises), cried out, but ajax's soul stood far apart; and raising his voice repeated the rest to him, but sit, draw near, and patiently attend, hear what i say, and tame, your violent rage. to this hylas, unable to contain, returned a scurvy answer saying that ajax's soul, taking her lot in the twentieth place in hell, changed her nature, according to plato, for a lion's; but, for his part, he could not but often think upon the saying of the old comedian, 'tis better far to be an ass than see unworthwhile men in greater honor shine at this sospis, laughing heartily, said: but in the meantime, before we have the pack-saddles on, if you have any regard for plato, tell us why he makes ajax's soul, after the lots drawn, to have the twentieth choice. hylas, with great indignation, refused, thinking that this was a jeering reflection on his former miscarriage. and therefore my brother began thus: what, was not ajax counted the second for beauty, strength, and courage, and the next to achilles in the grecian army? and twenty is the second ten, and ten is the chiefest of numbers, as achilles of the greeks. we laughing at this, ammonius said: well, lamprias, let this suffice for a joke upon hylas; but since you have voluntarily taken upon you to give an account of this matter, leave off jesting, and seriously proceed. this startled lamprias a little, but, after a short pause, he continued thus: plato often tells merry stories under borrowed names, but when he puts any fable into a discourse concerning the soul, he hath some considerable meaning in it. the intelligent nature of the heavens he calls a flying chariot, intimating the harmonious whirl of the world. and here he introduceth one er, the son of harmonius, a pamphylian, to tell what he had seen in hell; intimating that our souls are begotten according to harmony, and are agreeably united to our bodies, and that, when they are separated, they are from all parts carried together into the air, and from thence return to second generations. and what hinders but that [greek omitted] twentieth should intimate that this was not a true story, but only probable and fictitious [greek omitted], and that the lot fell casually [greek omitted]. for plato always toucheth upon three causes, he being the first and chiefest philosopher that knew how fate accords with fortune, and how our free-will is mixed and complicated with both. and now he hath admirably discovered what influence each hath upon our affairs. the choice of our life he hath left to our free-will, for virtue and vice are free. but that those who have made a good choice should live religiously, and those who have made an ill choice should lead a contrary life, he leaves to the necessity of fate. but the chances of lots thrown at a venture introduce fortune into the several conditions of life in which we are brought up, and which pre-occupates and perverts our own choice. now consider whether it is not irrational to inquire after a cause of those things that are done by chance. for if the lot seems to be disposed of by design, it ceaseth to be chance and fortune, and becomes fate and providence. whilst lamprias was speaking, marcus the grammarian seemed to be counting to himself, and when he had done, he began thus: amongst the souls which homer mentions in his [greek omitted], elpenor's is not to be reckoned as mixed with those in hell, but, his body being not buried, as wandering about the banks of the river styx. nor is it fit that we should reckon tiresias's soul amongst the rest,- on whom alone, when deep in hell beneath, wisdom proserpina conferred, to discourse and converse with the living even before he drank the sacrifice's blood. therefore, lamprias, if you subtract these two, you will find that ajax was the twentieth that ulysses saw, and plato merrily alludes to that place in homer's [greek omitted]. question vi. what is signified by the fable about the defeat of neptune? and also, why do the athenians omit the second day of the month boedromion? menephylus, hylas, lamprias. while all were making a disturbance, menephylus, a peripatetic philosopher, addressing hylas: you see, he said, how this investigation is no foolery nor insolence. but leave now, my dear fellow, that obstinate ajax, whose name is ill-omened, as sophocles says, and side with poseidon, whom you yourself are wont to tell has often been overcome, once by athene here, in delphi by apollo, in argos by here, in aegina by zeus, in naxos by bacchus, yet in his misfortunes has always been mild and amiable. here at least he shares a temple in common with athene, in which there is an altar dedicated to lethe. and hylas, as if he had become better tempered: one thing has escaped you, menephylus, that we have given up the second day of september, not on account of the moon, but because on that day the gods seemed to have contended for the country. by all means, said lamprias, by as much as poseidon was more civilized than thrasybulus, since not like him a winner but a loser.... (the rest of this book to question xiii is lost; with the exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of question xii.) question vii. why the accords in music are separated into three. question viii. wherein the intervals melodious differ from those that are harmonic. question ix. what is the cause of accord? and also, why, when two accordant strings are touched together, is the melody ascribed to the base? question x. why, when the ecliptic periods of the sun and the moon are equal in number, the moon appears oftener eclipsed than the sun. question xi. that we continue not always the same, in regard of the deflux of our substance. question xii. is it more probable that the number of the stars is even or odd? men must be cheated by oaths. and glaucias said: i have heard this saying used against polycrates the tyrant; probably too it was said against others: but why do you ask these questions? because, by zeus, said sospis, i see the children playing odd and even with jackstones and the academics with words. for such tempers as these differ in no way from those who ask whether they hold clutched in their hands odd or even. then protogenes stood up and called me by name: what is the matter with us that we allow these rhetoricians to be so conceited, and to laugh down others while they are asked nothing, and contribute nothing in the way of argument,--unless they swear that they have no part in the wine as admirers and disciples of demosthenes, a man who in his whole life never drank wine. that is not the cause of this, said i; but we have never asked them anything. but unless you have something more useful, i think i can put before them from homer's poetry a case of antinomy in rhetorical theses. question xiii. a moot-point out of the third book of homer's iliads. plutarch, protogenes, glaucias, sospis. what question will you put them, said protogenes? i will tell you, continued i, and let them carefully attend. paris makes his challenge in these express words:- let me and valiant menelaus fight for helen, and for all the goods she brought; and he that shall o'ercome, let him enjoy the goods and woman; let them be his own. and hector afterwards publicly proclaiming this challenge in these plain words:- he bids the trojans and the valiant greeks to fix their arms upon the fruitful ground; let menelaus and stout paris fight for all the goods; and he that beats have all. menelaus accepted the challenge, and the conditions were sworn to, agamemnon dictating thus:- if paris valiant menelaus kills, let him have helen, and the goods possess; if youthful menelaus paris kills, the woman and the goods shall all be his. (see "iliad," iii. 68, 88, 255, and 281.) now since menelaus only overcame but did not kill paris, each party hath somewhat to say for itself, and against the other. the one may demand restitution, because paris was overcome; the other deny it, because he was not killed. now how to determine this case and clear the seeming repugnancies doth not belong to philosophers or grammarians, but to rhetoricians, that are well skilled both in grammar and philosophy. then sospis said: the challenger's word decides; for the challenger proposed the conditions, and when they were accepted, the opposite party had no power to make additions. now the condition proposed in this challenge was not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason that it should be so, for helen ought to be the wife of the bravest. now the bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an excellent soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what happened afterward, when achilles was shot by paris. for i do not believe that you will affirm, that achilles was not so brave a man as paris because he was killed by him, and that it should be called the victory, and not rather the unjust good fortune, of him that shot him. but hector was overcome before he was killed by achilles, because he would not stand, but trembled and fled at his approach. for he that refuseth the combat or flies cannot palliate his defeat, and plainly grants that his adversary is the better man. and therefore iris tells helen beforehand, in single combat they shall fight for you, and you shall be the glorious victor's wife. (2 ibid. iii. 137.) and jupiter afterwards adjudges the victory to menelaus in these words: the conquest leans to menelaus's side. (3 ibid. iv. 13.) for it would be ridiculous to call menelaus a conqueror when he shot podes, a man at a great distance, before he thought of or could provide against his danger, and yet not allow him the reward of conquest over him whom he made fly and sneak into the embraces of his wife, and whom he spoiled of his arms whilst he was yet alive, and who had himself offered the challenge, by the articles of which menelaus now appeared to be the conqueror. glaucias subjoined: in all laws, decrees, contracts, and promises, those latest made are always accounted more valid than the former. now the later contract was agamemnon's, the condition of which was killing, and not only overcoming. besides the former was mere words, the latter confirmed by oath; and, by the consent of all, those were cursed that broke them; so that this latter was properly the contract, and the other a bare challenge. and this priam at his going away, after he had sworn to the conditions, confirms by these words:- but jove and other gods alone do know, which is designed to see the shades below; ("iliad," iii. 308.) for he understood that to be the condition of the contract. and therefore a little after hector says, but jove hath undetermined left our oaths, (ibid. vii. 69.) for the combat had not its designed and indisputable determination, since neither of them fell. therefore this question doth not seem to me to contain any contrariety of law, since the former contract is comprised and overruled by the latter; for he that kills certainly overcomes, but he that overcomes doth not always kill. but, in short, agamemnon did not annul, but only explain the challenge proposed by hector. he did not change anything, but only added the most principal part, placing victory in killing; for that is a complete conquest, but all others may be evaded or disputed, as this of menelaus, who neither wounded nor pursued his adversary. now as, where there are laws really contrary, the judges take that side which is plain and indisputable, and mind not that which is obscure; so in this case, let us admit that contract to be most valid which contained killing, as a known and undeniable evidence of victory. but (which is the greatest argument) he that seems to have had the victory, not being quiet, but running up and down the army, and searching all about, to find neat paris in the busy throng, (ibid. iii. 450.) sufficiently testifies that he himself did not imagine that the conquest was perfect and complete. for when paris had escaped he did not forget his own words:- and which of us black fate and death design, let him be lost; the others cease from war. (iliad, iii. 101,) therefore it was necessary for him to seek after paris, that he might kill him and complete the combat; but since he neither killed nor took him, he had no right to the prize. for he did not conquer him, if we may guess by what he said when he expostulated with jove and bewailed his unsuccessful attempt:- jove, heaven holds no more spiteful god than thou. now would i punish paris for his crimes; but oh! my sword is broke, my mighty spear, stretched out in vain, flies idly from my hand! (ibid. iii, 365.) for in these words he confessed that it was to no purpose to pierce the shield or take the head-piece of his adversary, unless he likewise wounded or killed him. question xiv. some observations about the number of the muses, not commonly known. herodes, ammonius, lamprias, tryphon, dionysius, menephylus, plutarch. this discourse ended, we poured out our offerings to the muses, and together with a hymn in honor of apollo, the patron of the muses, we sung with erato, who played upon the harp, the generation of the muses out of hesiod. after the song was done, herod the rhetorician said: pray, sirs, hearken. those that will not admit calliope to be ours say that she keeps company with kings, not such, i suppose, as are busied in resolving syllogisms or disputing, but such who do those things that belong to rhetoricians and statesmen. but of the rest of the muses, clio abets encomiums, for praises are called [greek omitted]; and polymnia history, for her name signifies the remembrance of many things; and it is said that all the muses were somewhere called remembrances. and for my part, i think euterpe hath some relation to us too, if (as chrysippus says) her lot be agreeableness in discourse and pleasantness in conversation. for it belongs to an orator to converse, as well as plead or give advice; since it is his part to gain the favor of his auditors, and to defend or excuse his client. to praise or dispraise is the commonest theme; and if we manage this artfully, it will turn to considerable account; if unskilfully, we are lost. for that saying, gods! how he is honored and beloved by all, ("odyssey," x. 38.) chiefly, in my opinion, belongs to those men who have a pleasing and persuasive faculty in discourse. then said ammonius to herod: we have no reason to be angry with you for grasping all the muses, since the goods that friends have are common, and jove hath begotten a great many muses, that every man may be plentifully supplied; for we do not all need skill in hunting, military arts, navigation, or any mechanical trades; but learning and instruction is necessary for every one that consumes the fruits of the spacious earth. (from simonides.) and therefore jove made but one minerva, one diana, one vulcan, but many muses. but why there should be nine, and no more nor less, pray acquaint us; for you, so great a lover of, and so well acquainted with, the muses, must certainly have considered this matter. what difficulty is there in that? replied herod. the number nine is in everybody's mouth, as being the first square of the first odd number; and as doubly odd, since it may be divided into three equal odd numbers. ammonius with a smile subjoined: boldly said; and pray add, that this number is composed of the two first cubes, one and eight, and according to another composition of two triangles, three and six, each of which is itself perfect. but why should this belong to the muses more than any other of the gods? for we have nine muses, but not nine cereses, nine minervas or dianas. for i do not believe that you take it for a good argument, that the muses must be so many, because their mother's name (mnemosyne) consists of just so many letters. herod smiling, and everybody being silent, ammonius desired our opinions. my brother said, that the ancients celebrated but three muses, and that to bring proofs for this assertion would be pedantic and uncivil in such a company. the reason of this number was (not as some say) the three different sorts of music, the diatonic, the chromatic, and harmonic, nor those stops that make the intervals nete, mese, and hypate, though the delphians gave the muses this name erroneously, in my opinion, appropriating it to one science, or rather to a part of one single science, the harmoniac part of music. but, as i think, the ancients, reducing all arts and sciences which are executed and performed by reason or discourse to three heads, philosophy, rhetoric, and mathematics, accounted them the gifts of three gods, and named them the muses. afterwards, about hesiod's time, the sciences being better and more thoroughly looked into, and men subdividing them found that each science contained three different parts. in mathematics are comprehended music, arithmetic, and geometry; in philosophy are logic, ethics, and physics. in rhetoric, they say the first part was demonstrative or encomiastic, the second deliberative, the third judicial. none of all which they believed to be without a god or a muse or some superior power for its patron, and did not, it is probable, make the muses equal in number to these divisions, but found them to be so. now, as you may divide nine into three threes, and each three into as many units; so there is but one rectitude of reason, which is employed about the highest truth, and which belongs to the whole in common, while each of the three kinds of science is assigned three muses, and each of these has her distinct faculty assigned to her, which she disposes and orders. and i do not think the poets and astrologers will find fault with us for passing over their professions in silence, since they know, as well as we, that astrology is comprehended in geometry, and poetry in music. as soon as he had said this, trypho the physician subjoined: how hath our art offended you, that you have shut the museum against us? and dionysius of melite added: sir, you have a great many that will side with you in the accusation; for we farmers think thalia to be ours, assigning her the care of springing and budding seeds and plants. but i interposing said: your accusation is not just; for you have bountiful ceres, and bacchus who (as pindar phraseth it) increaseth the trees, the chaste beauty of the fruits; and we know that aesculapius is the patron of the physicians, and they make their address to apollo as paean, but never as the muses' leader. all men (as homer says) stand in need of the gods, but all stand not in need of all. but i wonder lamprias did not mind what the delphians say in this matter; for they affirm that the muses amongst them were not named so either from the strings or sounds in music; but the universe being divided into three parts, the first portion was of the fixed stars, the second of the planets, the third of those things that are under the concave of the moon; and all these are ordered according to harmonical proportions, and of each portion a muse takes care; hypate of the first, nete of the last, and mese in the middle, combining as much as possible, and turning about mortal things with the gods and earthly with heavenly. and plato intimates the same thing under the names of the fates, calling one atropos, the other lachesis, and the other clotho. for he hath committed the revolutions of the eight spheres to so many sirens, and not muses. then menephylus the peripatetic subjoined: the delphians' opinion hath indeed somewhat of probability in it; but plato is absurd in committing the eternal and divine revolutions not to the muses but to the sirens, daemons that neither love nor are benevolent to mankind, wholly passing by the muses, or calling them by the names of the fates, the daughters of necessity. for necessity is averse to the muses; but persuasion being more agreeable and better acquainted with them, in my opinion, than the grace of empedocles, intolerable necessity abhors. no doubt, said ammonius, as it is in us a violent and involuntary cause; but in the gods necessity is not intolerable, uncontrollable, or violent, unless it be to the wicked; as the law in a commonwealth to the best man is its best gift, not to be violated or transgressed, not because they have no power, but because they have no will, to change it. and homer's sirens give us no just reason to be afraid; for he in that fable rightly intimates the power of their music not to be hurtful to man, but delightfully charming, and detaining the souls which pass from hence thither and wander after death; working in them a love for heavenly and divine things, and a forgetfulness of everything on earth; and they extremely pleased follow and attend them. and from thence some imperfect sound, and as it were echo of that music, coming to us by the means of reason and good precepts, rouseth our souls, and restores the notice of those things to our minds, the greatest part of which lie encumbered with and entangled in disturbances of the flesh and distracting passions. but the generous soul hears and remembers, and her affection for those pleasures riseth up to the most ardent passion, whilst she eagerly desires but is not able to free herself from the body. it is true, i do not approve what he says; but plato seems to me, as he hath strangely and unaccountably called the axes spindles and distaffs, and the stars whirls, so to have named the muses sirens, as delivering divine things to the ghosts below, as ulysses in sophocles says of the sirens, i next to phorcus's daughters came, who fix the sullen laws below. eight of the muses take care of the spheres, and one of all about the earth. the eight who govern the motions of the spheres maintain the agreement of the planets with the fixed stars and one another. but that one who looks after the place betwixt the earth and moon and takes care of mortal things, by means of discourse and song introduceth persuasion, aiding our natural consent to community and agreement, and giveth men as much harmony, grace, and order as is possible for them to take; introducing this persuasion to appease and quiet our disturbances, and as it were to recall our wandering desires out of the wrong way, and to set us in the right path. but, as pindar says, whom jove abhors, he starts to hear the muses sounding in his ear. (pindar, "pythian," i. 25.) to this discourse ammonius, as he used to do, subjoined that verse of xenophanes, this fine discourse seems near allied to truth, and desired every one to deliver his opinion. and i after a short silence, said: as plato thinks by the name, as it were by tracks, to discover the powers of the gods, so let us place in heaven and over heavenly things one of the muses, urania. and it is likely that those require no distracting variety of cares to govern them, since they have the same single nature for the cause of all their motions. but where are a great many irregularities and disorders, there we must place the eight muses, that we may have one to correct each particular irregularity and miscarriage. there are two parts in a man's life, the serious and the merry; and each must be regulated and methodized. the serious role, which instructs us in the knowledge and contemplation of the gods, calliope, clio, and thalia appear chiefly to look after and direct. the other muses govern our weak part, which changes presently into wantonness and folly; they do not neglect our brutish and violent passions and let them run their own course, but by appropriate dancing, music, song, and orderly motion mixed with reason, bring them down to a moderate temper and condition. for my part, since plato admits two principles of every action, viz, the natural desire after pleasure, and acquired opinion which covets and wishes for the best, and calls one reason and the other passion, and since each of these is manifold, i think that each requires a considerable and, to speak the truth, a divine direction. for instance, one faculty of our reason is said to be political or imperial, over which hesiod says calliope presides; clio's province is the noble and aspiring; and polymnia's that faculty of the soul which inclines to attain and keep knowledge (and therefore the sicyonians call one of their three muses polymathia); to euterpe everybody allows the searches into nature and physical speculations, there being no greater, no sincerer pleasure belonging to any other sort of speculation in the world. the natural desire to meat and drink thalia reduceth from brutish and uncivil to be sociable and friendly; and therefore we say [greek omitted] of those that are friendly, merry, and sociable over their cups, and not of those that are quarrelsome and mad. erato, together with persuasion, that brings along with it reason and opportunity, presides over marriages; she takes away and extinguisheth all the violent fury of pleasure, and makes it tend to friendship, mutual confidence, and endearment, and not to effeminacy, lust, or discontent. the delight which the eye or ear receives is a sort of pleasure, either appropriate to reason or to passion, or common to them both. this the two other muses, terpsichore and melpomene, so moderate, that the one may only tickle and not charm, the other only please and not bewitch. question xv. that there are three parts in dancing: [greek omitted], motion, [greek omitted], gesture, and [greek omitted], representation. what each of those is and what is common to both poetry and dancing. ammonius and thrasybulus. after this, a match of dancing was proposed, and a cake was the prize. the judges were meniscus the dancing-master, and my brother lamprias; for he danced the pyrrhic very well, and in the palaestra none could match him for the graceful motion of his hands and arms in dancing. now a great many dancing with more heat than art, some desired two of the company who seemed to be best skilled and took most care to observe their steps, to dance in the kind called [greek omitted]. upon this thrasybulus, the son of ammonius, demanded what [greek omitted] signified, and gave ammonius occasion to run over most of the parts of dancing. he said they were three,--[greek omitted], [greek omitted] and [greek omitted]. for dancing is made up of motion and manner [greek omitted] as a song of sounds and stops; stops are the ends of motion. now the motions they call [greek omitted], and the gestures and likeness to which the motions tend, and in which they end, they call [greek omitted]: as, for instance, when by their own motions they represent the figure of apollo, pan, or any of the raging bacchae. the third is [greek omitted]; which is not an imitation, but a plain downright indication of the things represented. for as the poets, when they would speak of achilles, ulysses, the earth, or heaven, use their proper names, and such as the vulgar usually understand. but for the more lively representation, they use such words as by their very sound express some eminent quality in the thing, or metaphors; as when they say that streams do "babble and flash"; that arrows fly "desirous the flesh to wound"; or when they describe an equal battle by saying "the fight had equal heads." they have likewise a great many significative compositions in their verses. thus euripides of perseus, he that medusa slew, and flies in air; and pindar of a horse, when by the smooth alpheus's banks he ran the race, and never felt the spur; and homer of a race, the chariots, overlaid with tin and brass, by fiery horses drawn ran swiftly on. (euripedes, frag. 975; pindar, "olympian," i. 31; "iliad," xxiii. 503.) so in dancing, the [greek omitted] represents the shape and figure, the [greek omitted] shows some action, passion, or power; but by the [greek omitted] are properly and significatively shown the things themselves, for instance, the heaven, earth, or the company. which, being done in a certain order and method, resembles the proper names used in poetry, decently clothed and attended with suitable epithets. as in these lines, themis the venerable and admired, and venus beauteous with her bending brows, fair dione, and june crowned with gold. (hesiod, "theogony," 16.) and in these, from hellen kings renowned for giving laws, great dorus and the mighty xuthus sprang, and aeolus, whose chief delight was horse. for if poets did not take this liberty, how mean, how grovelling and flat, would be their verse! as suppose they wrote thus, from this sprung hercules, from the other iphitus. her father, husband, and her son were kings, her brother and forefathers were the same; and she in greece olympias was called. the same faults may be committed in that sort of dancing called [greek omitted] unless the representation be lively and graceful, decent and unaffected. and, in short, we may aptly transfer what simonides said of painting to dancing, and call dancing mute poetry, and poetry speaking dancing; for poesy doth not properly belong to painting, nor painting to poesy, neither do they any way make use of one another. but poesy and dancing share much in common especially in that type of song called hyporchema, in which is the most lively representation imaginable, dancing doing it by gesture, and poesy by words. so that poesy may bear some resemblance to the colors in painting, while dancing is like the lines which mark out the features. and therefore he who was the most famous writer of hyporchemes, who here even surpassed himself, sufficiently proveth that these two arts stand in need of one another he shows what tendency poetry hath to dancing; whilst the sound excites the hands and feet, or rather as it were by some cords distends and raiseth every member of the whole body; so that, whilst such songs are recited or sung, they cannot be quiet. but nowadays no sort of exercise hath such bad depraved music applied to it as dancing; and so it suffers that which ibyeus as to his own concerns was fearful of, as appears by these lines, i fear lest, losing fame amongst the gods, i shall receive respect from men alone. for having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and falling from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly acquainted, it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and inconsiderate spectators, like a tyrant, it hath subjected nearly all music, but hath lost all its honor with excellent and wise men. these, my sossius senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had at ammonius's house during the festival of the muses. end of five-----------common conceptions against the stoics. lamprias, diadumenus lamprias. you, o diadumenus, seem not much to care, if any one thinks that you philosophize against the common notions; since you confess that you contemn also the senses, from whence the most part of these notions in a manner proceed, having for their seat and foundation the belief of such things as appear to us. but i beseech you, with what speed you can, either by reasons, incantations, or some other manner of discourse, to cure me, who come to you full, as i seem to myself, of great and strange perturbations; so much have i been shaken, and into such a perplexity of mind have i been brought, by certain stoics, in other things indeed very good men and my familiar friends, but most bitterly and hostility bent against the academy. these, for some few words modestly spoken by me, have (for i will tell you no lie) rudely and unkindly reprehended me; angrily censuring and branding the ancient philosophers as sophists and corrupters of philosophy, and subverters of regular doctrines; and saying things yet more absurd than these, they fell at last upon the conceptions, into which (they contend) the academics had brought a certain confusion and disturbance. at length one of them said, that he thought it was not by fortune, but by the providence of the gods, that chrysippus came into the world after arcesilaus and before carneades; of which the one was the author of the contumelies and injuries done to custom, and the other flourished most of all the academics. chrysippus then, coming between them, by his writings against arcesilaus, stopped also the way against the eloquence of carneades, leaving indeed many things to the senses, as provisions against a siege, but wholly taking away the trouble about anticipations and conceptions, directing every one of them and putting it in its proper place; so that they who will again embroil and disquiet matters should gain nothing, but be convinced of being malicious and deceitful sophists. i, having been this morning set on fire by these discourses, want some cooling remedies to extinguish and take away this doubting, as an inflammation, out of my mind. diadumenus. you perhaps have suffered the same things with some of the vulgar. but if you believe the poets, who say that the ancient city sipylus was overthrown by the providence of the gods when they punished tantalus, believe also the companions of the stoa saying that nature, not by chance but by divine providence, brought forth chrysippus, when she had a mind to turn things upside down and alter the course of life; for which purpose never any man was fitter than he. but as cato said of caesar, that never any but he came to the management of public affairs sober and considerately resolved on the ruin of the state; so does this man seem to me with the greatest diligence and eloquence to overturn and demolish custom, as those who magnify the man testify, when they dispute against him concerning the sophism called pseudomenos (or the liar). for to say, my best friend, that a conclusion drawn from contrary positions is not manifestly false, and again to say that some arguments having true premises and true inductions may yet moreover have the contrary to their conclusions true, what conception of demonstration or what assumption of confidence does it not overthrow? they say, that the polypus in the winter gnaws his own claws; but the logic of chrysippus, taking away and cutting off its own chiefest parts and principles,--what other notion has it left unsuspected of falsehood? for the superstructures cannot be steady and sure, if the foundations remain not firm but are shaken with so many doubts and troubles. but as those who have dust or dirt upon their bodies, if they touch or rub the filth that is upon them, seem rather to increase than remove it; so some men blame the academics, and think them guilty of the faults with which they show themselves to be burdened. for who do more subvert the common conceptions than the stoic school? but if you please, let us leave accusing them, and defend ourselves from the things with which they charge us. lamprias. methinks, diadumenus, i am this day become a various and unconstant man. for erewhile i came dejected and trembling, as one that wanted an apology; and now i am changed to an accuser, and desire to enjoy the pleasure of revenge, in seeing them all convicted of philosophizing against the common conceptions and presumptions, on which they think chiefly their doctrine is founded, whence they say that it alone agrees with nature. diadumenus. shall we then first attack those common and celebrated doctrines of theirs which themselves, gently admitting their absurdity, style paradoxes; as that only wise men are kings, that they only are rich and fair, they only citizens and judges? or shall we send all this to the brokers, as old decayed frippery, and make our inquiry into such things as are most practical and with the greatest earnestness delivered by them? lamprias. i indeed like this best. for who is there that is not already full of the arguments brought against those paradoxes? diadumenus. first, then, consider this, whether, according to the common conceptions, they can be said to agree with nature, who think all natural things indifferent, and esteem neither health, strength of body, beauty, nor strength as desirable, commodious, profitable, or any way contributory to the completing of natural perfection; nor consider that their contraries, as maims, pains, disgraces, and diseases, are hurtful or to be shunned? to the latter of these they themselves say that nature gives us an abhorrence, and an inclination to the former. which very thing is not a little repugnant to common understanding, that nature should incline us to such things as are neither good nor available, and avert us from such as are neither ill nor hurtful, and which is more, that she should render this inclination and this aversion so violent, that they who either possess not the one or fall into the other detest their life with good reason, and withdraw themselves out of it. i think also that this is said by them against common sense, that nature herself is indifferent, and yet that it is good to agree with nature. for it is not our duty either to follow the law or be persuaded by argument, unless the law and argument be good and honest. and this indeed is the least of their errors. but if, as chrysippus has written in his first book concerning exhortation, a happy life consists only in living according to virtue, other things (as he says) being nothing to us, nor cooperating any ways towards it, nature is not only indifferent, but foolish also and stupid, in inclining us to such things as belong nothing to us; and we also are fools in thinking felicity to be an agreeing with nature, which draws us after such things as contribute nothing to happiness. for what can be more agreeable to common sense, than that, as desirable things are requisite to live commodiously, so natural things are necessary that we may live according to nature? now these men say not so; but having settled the living according to nature for their end, do nevertheless hold those things which are according to nature to be indifferent. nor is this less repugnant to common sense, that an intelligent and prudent man should not be equally affected to equal good things, but should put no value on some, and be ready to undergo and suffer anything for others, though the things themselves are neither greater nor less one than another. for they say, it is the same thing to abstain from the enjoyment of an old woman that is about to die as to take part in the greatest actions with moderation... since in both cases we do what duty requires. and yet for this, as a great and glorious thing, they should be ready to die; when as to boast of the other would be shameful and ridiculous. and even chrysippus himself in his commentary concerning jupiter, and in the third book of the gods, says, that it were a poor, absurd, and impertinent thing to glory in such acts, as proceeding from virtue, as bearing valiantly the stinging of a wasp, or abstaining chastely from an old woman that lies a dying. do not they then philosophize against the common conception, who profess nothing to be more commendable than those things which yet themselves are ashamed to praise? for how can that be desirable or to be approved, which is worthy neither of praise nor admiration, but the praisers and admirers of which they esteem absurd and ridiculous? and yet this will (i suppose) appear to you more against common sense, that a wise man should take no care whether he enjoys or not enjoys the greatest good things, but should carry himself after the same manner in these things, as in those that are indifferent both in their management and administration. for all of us, "whoever we are that eat the fruit of the broad earth," judge that desirable, good, and profitable, which being present we use, and absent we want and desire. but that which no man thinks worth his concern, either for his profit or delight, is indifferent. for we by no other means distinguish a laborious man from a trifler, who is for the most part also employed in action, but that the one busies himself in useless matters and indifferently, and the other in things commodious and profitable. but these men act quite contrary; for with them, a wise and prudent man, being conversant in many comprehensions and memories of comprehension, esteems few of them to belong to him; and not caring for the rest, he thinks he has neither more or less by remembering that he lately had the comprehension of dion sneezing or theon playing at ball. and yet every comprehension in a wise man, and every memory having assurance and firmness, is a great, yea, a very great good. when therefore his health fails, when some organ of his senses is disordered, or when his wealth is lost, is a wise man so careless as to think that none of these things concern him? or does he, "when sick, give fees to the physicians: for the gaining of riches sail to leucon, governor in the bosphorus, or travel to idanthyrsus, king of the scythians," as chrysippus says? and being deprived of some of his senses, does he not become weary even of life? how then do they not acknowledge that they philosophize against the common notions, employing so much care and diligence on things indifferent, and not minding whether they have or have not great good things? but this is also yet against the common conceptions, that he who is a man should not rejoice when coming from the greatest evils to the greatest goods. now their wise men suffer this. being changed from extreme viciousness to the highest virtue, and at the same time escaping a most miserable life and attaining to a most happy one, he shows no sign of joy, nor does this so great change lift him up or yet move him, being delivered from all infelicity and vice, and coming to a certain sure and firm perfection of virtue. this also is repugnant to common sense, to hold that the being immutable in one's judgments and resolutions is the greatest of goods, and yet that he who has attained to the height wants not this, nor cares for it when he has it, nay, many times will not so much as stretch forth a finger for this security and constancy, which nevertheless themselves esteem the sovereign and perfect good. nor do the stoics say only these things, but they add also this to them,--that the continuance of time increases not any good thing; but if a man shall be wise but a minute of an hour, he will not be any way inferior in happiness to him who has all his time practised virtue and led his life happily in it. yet, whilst they thus boldly affirm these things, they on the contrary also say, that a short-lived virtue is nothing worth; "for what advantage would the attainment of wisdom be to him who is immediately to be swallowed up by the waves or tumbled down headlong from a precipice? what would it have benefited lichas, if being thrown by hercules, as from a sling into the sea, he had been on a sudden changed from vice to virtue?" these therefore are the positions of men who not only philosophize against the common conceptions but also confound their own, if the having been but a little while endued with virtue is no way short of the highest felicity, and at the same time nothing worth. nor is this the strangest thing you will find in their doctrine; but their being of opinion that virtue and happiness, when present, are frequently not perceived by him who enjoys them, nor does he discern that, having but a little before been most miserable and foolish, he is of a sudden become wise and happy. for it is not only childish to say that he who is possessed of wisdom is ignorant of this thing alone, that he is wise, and knows not that he is delivered from folly; but, to speak in general, they make goodness to have very little weight or strength, if it does not give so much as a feeling of it when it is present. for according even to them, it is not by nature imperceptible; nay, even chrysippus in his books of the end expressly says that good is sensible, and demonstrates it also, as he maintains. it remains, then, that by its weakness and littleness it flies the sense, when being present it is unknown and concealed from the possessors. it were moreover absurd to imagine that the sight, perceiving those things which are but a little whitish or inclining to white, should not discern such as are white in perfection; or that the touch, feeling those things which are but warm or moderately hot, should be insensible of those that are hot in the highest degree. and yet more absurd it is, that a man who perceives what is commonly according to nature--as are health and good constitution of body--should yet be ignorant of virtue when it is present, which themselves hold to be most of all and in the highest degree according to nature. for how can it but be against sense, to conceive the difference between health and sickness, and yet so little to comprehend that between wisdom and folly as to think the one to be present when it is gone, and possessing the other to be ignorant that one has it? now because there is from the highest progress a change made to felicity and virtue, one of these two things must of necessity follow; either that this progress is not vice and infelicity, or that virtue is not far distant from vice, nor happiness from misery, but that the difference between good and evil is very small and not to be perceived by sense; for otherwise they who have the one for the other could not be ignorant of it. since, then, they will not depart from any of these contrarieties, but confess and hold them all,--that those who are proceeding towards virtue are fools and vicious, that those who are become good and wise perceive not this change in themselves, and that there is a great difference between folly and wisdom,--they must assuredly seem to you wonderfully to preserve an agreement in their doctrines, and yet more so in their conduct, when affirming all men who are not wise to be equally wicked, unjust, faithless, and fools, they on the other side abhor and detest some of them,--nay, sometimes to such a degree that they refuse even to speak to them when they meet them,--while others of them they trust with their money, choose to offices, and take for husbands to their daughters. now if they say these things in jest, let them smooth their brows; but if in earnest and as philosophers, it is against the common notions to reprove and blame all men alike in words, and yet to deal with some of them as moderate persons and with others as very wicked; and exceedingly to admire chrysippus, to deride alexinus, and yet to think neither of them more or less mad than the other. "'tis so," say they; "but as he who is not above a cubit under the superficies of the sea is no less drowned than he who is five hundred fathom deep, so they that are coming towards virtue are no less in vice their those that are farther off. and as blind men are still blind, though they shall perhaps a little after recover their sight; so these that have proceeded towards virtue, till such time as they have attained to it, continue foolish and wicked." but that they who are in the way towards virtue resemble not the blind, but such as see less clearly, nor are like to those who are drowned, but--those which swim, and that near the harbor--they themselves testify by their actions. for they would not use counsellors and generals and lawgivers as blind leaders, nor would they imitate the works and actions and words and lives of some, if they saw them all equally drowned in folly and wickedness. but leaving this, wonder at the men in this behalf, that they are not taught by their own examples to give up the doctrine that these men are wise being ignorant of it themselves, and neither knowing nor being sensible that they are recovered from being drowned and see the light, and that being gotten above vice, they fetch breath again. this also is against common sense, that it should be convenient for a man who has all good things, and wants nothing requisite to felicity and happiness, to make away himself; and much more this, that for him who neither has nor ever shall have any good thing, but who is and ever shall be accompanied with all adversities, difficulties, and mishaps, it should not be fitting to quit this life unless some of the indifferent things befall him. these laws are enacted in the stoa; and by these they incite many wise men to kill themselves, as if they would be thereby more happy; and they prevent many foolish men, as if it were proper for them to live on in misery. although the wise man is fortunate, blessed, every way happy, secure, and free from danger; but the vicious and foolish man is "full, as i may say, of evils, so that there is not room to put them in"; and yet they think that continuing in life is fit for the latter, and departing out of it for the former. and not without cause, says chrysippus, for we are not to measure life by good things or evil, but by those that are according to nature. in this manner do they maintain custom, and philosophize according to the common conceptions. what do you say?--that he who enters upon a deliberation of life and death has no right to consider what good or ill in his own house there is; or to weigh, as in a balance, what things have the greatest sign of serving to felicity or infelicity; but must argue whether he should live or die from those things which are neither profitable nor prejudicial, and follow such principles and sentences as command the choosing of a life full of all things to be avoided, and the shunning of one which wants nothing of all those things that are desirable? for though it is an absurd thing, friend lamprias, to shun a life in which there is no evil, it is yet more absurd, if any one should leave what is good because he is not possessed of what is indifferent, as these men do who leave present felicity and virtue for want of riches and health which they have not. satumian jove from glaucus took his wits, when he went about to change his suit of golden armor for a brazen one, and to give what was worth a hundred oxen for that which was worth but nine. and yet the brazen armor was no less useful for fight than the golden; whereas beauty and health of body, as the stoics say, contribute not the least advantage so far as happiness is concerned. and yet they seek health in exchange for wisdom. for they say, it would well enough have become heraclitus and pherecydes to have parted with their virtue and wisdom, if the one of them could have thereby been freed from his lousy disease, and the other from his dropsy; and if circe had used two sorts of magical drinks, one to make wise men fools, and the other to make fools wise, ulysses would rather have drunk that of folly, than have changed his shape for the form of a beast, though having with it wisdom, and consequently also happiness. and, they say, wisdom itself dictates to them these things, exhorting them thus: let me go, and value not my being lost, if i must be carried about in the shape of an ass. but this, some will say, is an ass-like wisdom which teacheth thus; granting that to be wise and enjoy felicity is good, and to wear the shape of an ass is indifferent. they say, there is a nation of the ethiopians where a dog reigns, is called king, and has all regal honors and services done to him; but men execute the offices of magistrates and governors of cities. do not the stoics act in the very same manner? they give the name and appearance of good to virtue, saying that it alone is desirable, profitable, and available; but in the meantime they act these things, they philosophize, they live and die, as at the command of things indifferent. and yet none of the ethiopians kill that dog; but he sits in state, and is revered by all. but these men destroy and corrupt their virtue, that they may obtain health and riches. but the corollary which chrysippus himself has given for a conclusion to his doctrines seems to free us from the trouble of saying anything more about it. for there being, says he, in nature some things good, some things bad, and some things between them both, which we call indifferent; there is no man but would rather have the good than the indifferent, and the indifferent than the bad. and of this we call the gods to witness, begging of them by our prayers principally the possession of good things, and if that may not be, deliverance from evil; not desiring that which is neither good nor bad instead of good, but willing to have it instead of evil. but this man, changing nature and inverting its order, removes the middle out of its own place into the last, and brings back the last into the middle,--not unlike to those tyrants who give the first place to the wicked,--and he gives us a law, first to seek the good, and secondly the evil, and lastly to judge that worst which is neither good nor evil; as if any one should place infernal things next to celestial, thrusting the earth and earthly things into tartarus, where very far from hence, deep under ground, lies a vast gulf. (iliad, viii. 14.) having therefore said in his third book concerning nature, that it is more expedient for a fool to live than not, though he should never attain to wisdom, he adds these words: "for such are the good things of men, that even evil things do in a manner precede other things that are in the middle place; not that these things themselves really precede, but reason, which makes us choose rather to live, though we were to be fools." therefore also, though we were to be unjust, wicked, hated of the gods, and unhappy; for none of these things are absent from those that live foolishly. is it then convenient rather to live miserably than not to live miserably, and better to be hurt than not hurt, to be unjust than not unjust, to break the laws than not to break them? that is, is it convenient to do things that are not convenient, and a duty to live even against duty? yes indeed, for it is worse to want sense and reason than to be a fool. what then ails them, that they will not confess that to be evil which is worse than evil? why do they say that folly alone is to be avoided, if it is not less but rather more convenient to shun that disposition which is not capable of folly? but who can complain of this, that shall remember what he has written in his second book of nature, declaring that vice was not unprofitably made for the universe? but it is meet i should set down his doctrine in his own words, that you may understand in what place those rank vice, and what discourses they hold of it, who accuse xenocrates and speusippus for not reckoning health indifferent and riches useless. "vice," saith he, "has its limit in reference to other accidents. for it is also in some sort according to the reason of nature, and (as i may so say) is not wholly useless in respect of the universe; for other wise there would not be any good." is there then no good among the gods, because there is no evil? and when jupiter, having resolved all matter into himself, shall be alone, other differences being taken away, will there then be no good, because there will be no evil? but is there melody in a choir though none in it sings faultily, and health in the body though no member is sick; and yet cannot virtue have its existence without vice? but as the poison of a serpent or the gall of an hyena is to be mixed with some medicines, was it also of necessity that there must have been some conjunction of the wickedness of meletus with the justice of socrates, and the dissolute conduct of cleon with the probity of pericles? and could not jupiter have found a means to bring into the world hercules and lycurgus, if he had not also made for us sardanapalus and phalaris? it is now time for them to say that the consumption was made for the sound constitution of men's bodies, and the gout for the swiftness of their feet; and that achilles would not have had a good head of hair if thersites had not been bald. for what difference is there between such triflers and ravers, and those who say that intemperance was not brought forth unprofitably for continence, nor injustice for justice, so that we must pray to the gods, there may be always wickedness, lies, fawning speeches, and deceitful manners, (hesiod, "works and days," 78.) if, when these are taken away, virtue will also vanish and be lost? or do you desire to understand the greatest sweetness of his eloquence and persuasion? "for," says he, "as comedies have in them sometimes ridiculous epigrams, which, though bad in themselves, give nevertheless a certain grace to the whole poem; so, though you may blame vice in itself, yet is it not useless to other things." first, then, to say that vice was made by the providence of god, as a wanton epigram by the will of the poet, transcends in absurdity all imagination. for this being granted, how will the gods be rather givers of good than evil? how will wickedness be displeasing to them, and hated by them? and what shall we have to oppose against these ill-sounding sentences of the poets.- a cause to men god sends, when to chastise some house his wrath intends; (from the "niobe" of aeschylus, frag. 151.) and again, what god those seeds of strife 'twixt them did sow? (iliad, i. 8.) moreover, a lewd epigram adorns the comedy and contributes to its end, which is to delight the spectators and make them laugh. but jupiter, who is surnamed fatherly, supreme, just, and (as pindar has it) the most perfect artist, framing the world, not as a great interlude, full of variety and great learning, but as a common city of gods and men, living together in concord and happiness with justice and virtue,--what need had he, for the attaining to this excellent end, of thieves, murderers, parricides, and tyrants? for vice entered not as a morris-dance, pleasing and delightful to the divinity; nor was it brought in amongst the affairs of men, to cause mirth and laughter by its raillery and facetiousness, since there is not to be seen in it so much as a dream of that celebrated agreement with nature. besides, that foolish epigram is a very small part of the poem, and takes up but a very little place in the comedy; neither do such things abound in it, nor do they corrupt any of those things which seem to have been well done, or spoil their grace. but all human affairs are replete with vice, and the whole life, from the very prologue and beginning to the end, being disordered, depraved, and disturbed, and having no part of it pure or irreprehensible (as these men say), is the most filthy and most unpleasant of all farces. wherefore i would willingly ask, in what vice is profitable to the universe. not surely in respect of heavenly things, and such as are divine by nature. for it would be ridiculous to say, that if there had not arisen, or were not amongst men, malice and covetousness and lying, or that if we did not rob, plunder, slander, and murder one another, the sun would not run his appointed course, the world enjoy its seasons and periods of time, or the earth, which is seated in the midst of the universe, afford the principles of the wind and rain. it remains, then, that the existence of vice must be profitable for us and our affairs; and that perhaps these men mean. are we more healthy for being vicious, or do we more abound with necessaries? or does vice contribute anything to our beauty and strength? they say, no. but where on earth is virtue to be met with? is it then only a base name, and a visionary opinion of night-walking sophists, and not an actual thing lying conspicuous to all, like vice, so that we cannot partake of anything as profitable,... but least, o ye gods! of virtue, for which we were created? is it not then absurd, that the utensils of the husbandman, mariner, and charioteer should be serviceable and aiding towards his intended end, whilst that which was by god made for virtue destroys and corrupts virtue? but perhaps it is time now to leave this point, and pass to another. lamprias. not for my sake, my dear friend, i beseech you; for i desire to understand, in what manner these men bring in evil things before the good, and vice before virtue. diadumenus. it is indeed, sir, a thing worth knowing. they babble indeed much; but in conclusion they say that prudence, being the knowledge of good and evil, would be wholly taken away if there were no evil. for as, if there are truths, it is impossible but there must be some lies also near to them; so it stands with reason, that if there are good things, there must also be evil things. lamprias. one of these things is not said amiss; and i think also that the other is not unapprehended by me. for i see a difference here: that which is not true must immediately be false; but that is not of necessity evil which is not good; because that between true and false there is no medium, but between good and evil there is the indifferent. nor is it of necessity that the one must subsist with the other. for nature may have good without having any need of evil, but only having that which is neither good nor evil. but if there is anything to be said by you to the former reason, let us hear it. diadumenus. many things indeed are said; but at present we shall make use only of what is most necessary. in the first place, it is a folly to imagine that good and evil have their existence for the sake of prudence. for good and evil being already extant, prudence came afterwards; as the art of physic was invented, there being already things wholesome and unwholesome. for good and evil are not therefore extant that there may be prudence; but the faculty by which we judge good and evil that are already in being is named prudence. as sight is a sense distinguishing white from black; which colors were not therefore made that we might have sight, but we rather wanted sight to discern these things. secondly, when the world shall be set on fire (as the stoics hold), there will then no evil be left, but all will then be prudent and wise. there is therefore prudence, though there is no evil; nor is it of necessity for evil to exist that prudence may have a being. but supposing that prudence must always be a knowledge of good and evil, what inconvenience would it be if, evil being taken away, prudence should no longer subsist; but instead of this we should have another virtue, not being the knowledge of good and evil, but of good only? so, if black should be wholly lost from among the colors, and any one should therefore contend that sight is also lost, for that there is no more the sense of discerning black and white, what should hinder us from answering him: it is no prejudice to us, if we have not what you call sight, but in lieu of that have another sense and faculty, by which we apprehend colors that are white and not white. for i indeed think that neither our taste would be lost, if bitter things were wanting, nor our feeling, if pain were taken away, nor prudence, if evil had no being; but that these senses would remain, to apprehend things sweet and grateful and those that are not so, and prudence to be the science of things good and not good. but let those who think otherwise take the name to themselves, leaving us the thing. besides all this, what should hinder but there may be an understanding of evil, and an existence of good? as the gods, i believe, enjoy health, but understand the fever and pleurisy. since even we, who, as they say, have abundance of evils but no good, are not yet destitute of the knowledge what prudence, what goodness, and what happiness is. and this also would be remarkable, that if virtue were absent, there should be those who could teach us what it is and give us a comprehension of it, when if vice were not extant, it should be impossible to have any understanding of it. for see what these men persuade us who philosophize against the conceptions,--that by folly indeed we comprehend prudence, but prudence without folly cannot so much as comprehend folly itself. and if nature had absolutely stood in need of the generation of evil, yet might one or two examples of vice have been sufficient; or if you will, it might have been requisite that ten, a thousand, or ten thousand vicious men should be brought forth, and not that the multitude of vices should be so great as "to exceed in number the sands of the sea, the dust of the earth, and the feathers of all the various kinds of birds in the world," and yet that there should not be so much all this while as a dream of virtue. those who in sparta had the charge of the public halls or eating places called phiditia were wont to bring forth two or three helots drunken and full of wine, that the young men, seeing what drunkenness was, might learn to keep sobriety. but in human life there are many such examples of vice. for there is not any one sober to virtue; but we all stagger up and down, acting shamefully and living miserably. thus does reason inebriate us, and with so much trouble and madness does it fill us, that we fall in nothing short of those dogs of whom aesop says, that seeing certain skins swimming in the water, they endeavored to gulp down the sea, but burst before they could get at them. for reason also, by which we hope to gain reputation and attain to virtue, does, ere we can reach to it, corrupt and destroy us, being before filled with abundance of heady and bitter vice;--if indeed, as these men say, they who are got even to the uppermost step have no ease, cessation, or breathing from folly and infelicity. but let us see what manner of thing he shows vice to be who says that it was not brought forth unprofitably, and of what use and what a thing he makes it to be to those who have it, writing in his book of right conduct, that a wicked man wants nothing, has need of nothing, nothing is useful to him, nothing proper, nothing fit for him. how then is vice useful, with which neither health nor abundance of riches nor advancement in virtue is profitable? who then does not want these things, of which some are "preferable" and "acceptable" and therefore highly useful, and others are "according to nature," as themselves term them? but (they affirm) no one has need of them, unless he become wise. so the vicious man does not even stand in want of being made wise. nor are men hungry and thirsty before they become wise. when thirsty, therefore, they have no need of water, nor when hungry, of bread. be like to courteous guests, and him who asks only fire and shelter: does this man now not need entertainment? nor had he need of a cloak, who said, give hipponax a cloak, for i'm stiff with cold. but will you speak a paradox indeed, both extravagant and singular? say then that a wise man has need of nothing, that he wants nothing, he is fortunate, he is free from want, he is self-sufficient, blessed, perfect. now what madness is this, that he to whom nothing is wanting has need of the goods he has, but that the vicious indeed wants many things, and stands in need of nothing. for thus indeed says chrysippus, that the vicious wants but stands not in need; removing the common notions, like chessmen, backwards and forwards. for all men think that having need precedes wanting, esteeming him who stands in need of things that are not at hand or easy to be got, to want them. for no man wants horns or wings, because no one has need of them. but we say that those want arms and money and clothes who are destitute of them, when they have occasion for them. but these men are so desirous of seeming always to say something against the common notions, that for the love of novelty they often depart from their own opinions, as they do here. recall yourself to the consideration of what has been said a little above. this is one of their assertions against the common conception, that no vicious man receives any utility. and yet many being instructed profit, many being slaves are made free; many being besieged are delivered, being lame are led by the hand, and being sick are cured. "but possessing all these things, they are never the better, neither do receive benefits, nor have they any benefactors, nor do they slight them." vicious men then are not ungrateful, no more than are wise men. ingratitude therefore has no being; because the good receiving a benefit fail not to acknowledge it, and the bad are not capable of receiving any. behold, now, what they say to this,--that benefit is ranked among mean or middle things, and that to give and receive utility belongs only to the wise, but the bad also receive a benefit. then they who partake of the benefit partake not also of its use; and whither a benefit extends, there is nothing useful or commodious. now what else is there that makes a kind office a benefit, but that the bestower of it is, in some respect, useful to the needy receiver? lamprias. but let these things pass. what, i beseech you, is this so highly venerated utility, which preserving as some great and excellent thing for the wise, they permit not so much as the name of it to the vicious? diadumenus. if (say they) one wise man does but any way prudently stretch out his finger, all the wise men all the world over receive utility by it. this is the work of their amity; in this do the virtues of the wise man terminate by their common utilities. aristotle then and xenocrates doted, saving that men receive utility from the gods, from their parents, from their masters, being ignorant of that wonderful utility which wise men receive from one another, being moved according to virtue, though they neither are together nor yet know it. yet all men esteem, that laying up, keeping, and bestowing are then useful and profitable, when some benefit or profit is recovered by it. the thriving man buys keys, and diligently keeps his stores, with 's hand unlocking wealth's sweet treasury. (from the "bellerophontes" of euripides, frag. 287, vs. 8.) but to store up and to keep with diligence and labor such things as are for no use is not seemly or honorable, but ridiculous. if ulysses indeed had tied up with the knot which circe taught him, not the gifts he had received from alcinous,--tripods, caldrons, cloths, and gold,--but heaping up trash, stones, and such like trumpery, should have thought his employment about such things, and the possession and keeping of them, a happy and blessed work, would any one have imitated this foolish providence and empty care? yet this is the beauty, gravity, and happiness of the stoical consent, being nothing else but a gathering together and keeping of useless and indifferent things. for such are things according to nature, and more exterior things; if indeed they compare the greatest riches to fringes and golden chamberpots, and sometimes also, as it happens, to oil-cruets. then, as those who seem proudly to have affronted and railed at some gods or demigods presently changing their note, fall prostrate and sit humbly on the ground, praising and magnifying the divinity; so these men, having met with punishment of this arrogancy and vanity, again exercise themselves in these indifferent things and such as pertain nothing to them, crying out with a loud voice that there is only one thing good, specious, and honorable, the storing up of these things and the communication of them, and that it is not meet for those to live who have them not, but to despatch out of the way and famish themselves, bidding a long farewell to virtue. they esteem indeed theognis to have been a man altogether of a base and abject spirit, for saying, as one overfearful in regard to poverty, which is an indifferent thing:- from poverty to fly, into the deep throw thyself, cyrnus, or from rocks so steep. yet they themselves exhort the same thing in prose, and affirm that a man, to free himself from some great disease or exceedingly acute pain, if he have not at hand sword or hemlock, ought to leap into the sea or throw himself headlong from a precipice; neither of which is hurtful, or evil, or incommodious, or makes them who fall into it miserable. with what, then, says he, shall i begin? and what shall i take for the principle of duty and matter of virtue, leaving nature and that which is according to nature? with what, o good sir, do aristotle and theophrastus begin? what beginnings do xenocrates and polemo take? does not also zeno follow these, who hold nature and that which is according to nature to be the elements of happiness? but they indeed persisted in these things, as desirable, good, and profitable; and joining to them virtue, which employs them and uses every one of them according to its property, thought to complete and consummate a perfect life and one every way absolute, producing that concord which is truly suitable and consonant to nature. for these men did not run into confusion, like those who leap up from the ground and presently fall down again upon it, terming the same things acceptable and not desirable, proper and not good, unprofitable and yet useful, nothing to us and yet the principles of duties. but their life was such as their speech, and they exhibited actions suitable and consonant to their sayings. but they who are of the stoic sect--not unlike to that woman in archilochus, who deceitfully carried in one hand water, in the other fire--by some doctrines draw nature to them, and by others drive her from them. or rather, by their deeds and actions they embrace those things which are according to nature, as good and desirable, but in words and speeches they reject and contemn them, as indifferent and of no use to virtue for the acquiring felicity. now, forasmuch as all men esteem the sovereign good to be joyous, desirable, happy, of the greatest dignity, self-sufficient, and wanting nothing; compare their good, and see how it agrees with this common conception. does the stretching out a finger prudently produce this joy? is a prudent torture a thing desirable? is he happy, who with reason breaks his neck? is that of the greatest dignity, which reason often chooses to let go for that which is not good? is that perfect and self-sufficient, by enjoying which, if they possess not too indifferent things, they neither can nor will endure to live? there is also another tenet of the stoics, by which custom is still more injured, taking and plucking from her genuine notions, which are as her legitimate children, and supposing other bastardly, wild, and illegitimate ones in their room, and necessitating her to nourish and cherish the one instead of the other; and that too in those principles which concern things good and bad, desirable and avoidable, proper and strange, the energy of which ought to be more clearly distinguished than that of hot and cold, black and white. for the imaginations of these things are brought in by the senses from without; but those have their original bred from the good things which we have within us. but these men entering with their logic upon the topic of felicity, as on the sophism called pseudomenos, or that named kyrieuon, have removed no ambiguities, but brought in very many. indeed, of two good things, of which the one is the end and the other belongs to the end, none is ignorant that the end is the greater and perfecter good. chrysippus also acknowledges this difference, as is manifest from his third book of good things. for he dissents from those who make science the end, and sets it down.... in his treatise of justice, however, he does not think that justice can be preserved, if any one makes pleasure to be the end; but allows it may, if pleasure is not said to be the end, but simply a good. nor do i think that you need now to hear me repeat his words, since his third book of justice is everywhere to be had. when, therefore, o my friend, they elsewhere say that no one good is greater or less than another, and that what is not the end is equal to the end, they contradict not only the common conceptions, but even their own words. again, if of two evils, the one when it is present renders us worse, and the other hurts us but renders us not worse, it is against reason not to say that the evil which by its presence renders us worse is greater than that which hurts us but renders us not worse. now chrysippus indeed confesses, that there are some fears and sorrows and errors which hurt us, but render us not worse. read his first book of justice against plato; for in respect of other things, it is worth the while to note the babbling of the man in that place, expounding indifferently all matters and doctrines, as well proper to his own sect as foreign to it. it is likewise against common sense when he says that there may be two ends or scopes proposed of life, and that all the things we do are not to be referred to one; and yet this is more against common sense, to say that there is an end, and yet that every action is to be referred to another. nevertheless they must of necessity endure one of these. for if those things which are first according to nature are not eligible for themselves, but the choice and taking of them agreeably to reason is, and if every one therefore does all his actions for the acquiring the first things according to nature, then all things which are done must have their reference to this, that the principal things according to nature may be obtained. but they think that they who aim and aspire to get these things do not have the things themselves as the end, but that to which they must make reference, namely, the choice and not the things. for the end indeed is to choose and receive these things prudently. but the things themselves and the enjoying of them are not the end, but the material ground, having its value only from the choice. for it is my opinion that they both use and write this very expression, to show the difference. lamprias. you have exactly related both what they say and in what manner they deliver it. diadumenus. but observe how it fares with them, as with those that endeavor to leap over their own shadow; for they do not leave behind, but always carry along with them in their speech some absurdity most remote from common sense. for as, if any one should say that he who shoots does all he can, not that he may hit the mark, but that he may do all he can, such a one would rightly be esteemed to speak enigmatically and prodigiously; so these doting dreamers, who contend that the obtaining of natural things is not the end of aiming after natural things, but the taking and choosing them is, and that the desire and endeavor after health is not in every one terminated in the enjoyment of health, but on the contrary, the enjoyment of health is referred to the desire and endeavor after it, and that certain walkings and contentions of speech and suffering incisions and taking of medicines, so they are done by reason, are the end of health, and not health of them, they, i say, trifle like to those who say, let us sup, that we may offer sacrifice, that we may bathe. but this rather changes order and custom, and all things which these men say carry with them the total subversion and confusion of affairs. thus, we do not desire to take a walk in fit time that we may digest our meat; but we digest our meat that we may take a walk in fit time. has nature also made health for the sake of hellebore, instead of producing hellebore for the sake of health? for what is wanting to bring them to the highest degree of speaking paradoxes, but the saying of such things? what difference is there between him who says that health was made for the sake of medicines and not medicines for the sake of health, and him who makes the choice of medicines and their composition and use more desirable than health itself?--or rather who esteems health not at all desirable, but placing the end in the negotiation about these things, prefers desire to enjoyment, and not enjoyment to desire? for to desire, forsooth (they affirm), is joined the proceeding wisely and discreetly. it is true indeed, we will say, if respect be had to the end, that is, the enjoyment and possession of the things it pursues; but otherwise, it is wholly void of reason, if it does all things for the obtaining of that the enjoyment of which is neither honorable nor happy. now, since we are fallen upon this discourse, anything may rather be said to agree with common sense, than that those who have neither received nor have any conception of good do nevertheless desire and pursue it. for you see how chrysippus drives ariston into this difficulty, that he should understand an indifference in things inclining neither to good nor to bad, before either good or bad is itself understood; for so indifference will appear to have subsisted even before itself, if the understanding of it cannot be perceived unless good be first understood, while the good is nothing else than this very indifference. understand now and consider this indifference which the stoa refutes and calls consent, whence and in what manner it gives us the knowledge of good. for if without good the indifference to that which is not good cannot be understood, much less does the knowing of good things give any intelligence of itself to those who had not before some notion of the good. but as there can be no knowledge of the art of things wholesome and unwholesome in those who have not first some knowledge of the things themselves; so they cannot conceive any notion of the science of good and evil who have not some fore-knowledge of good and evil. lamprias. what then is good? diadumenus. nothing but prudence. lamprias. and what is prudence? diadumenus. nothing but the science of good. lamprias. there is much then of "jupiter's corinth" (that is, much begging the question) admitted into their reasoning. for i would have you let alone the saying about the turning of the pestle, lest you should seem to mock them; although an accident like to that has insinuated itself into their discourse. for it seems that, to the understanding of good, one has need to understand prudence, and to seek for prudence in the understanding of good, being forced always to pursue the one by the other, and thus failing of both; since to the understanding of each we have need of that which cannot be known without the other be first understood. diadumenus. but there is yet another way, by which you may perceive not only the perversion but the eversion of their discourse, and the reduction of it entirely to nothing. they hold the essence of good to be the reasonable election of things according to nature. now the election is not reasonable which is not directed to some end, as has been said before. what, then, is this end? nothing else, say they, but to reason rightly in the election of things according to nature. first, then, the conception of good is lost and gone. for to reason rightly in election is an operation proceeding from an habit of right reasoning, and therefore being constrained to get this from the end; and the end not without this, we fail of understanding either of them. besides, which is more, this reasonable election ought strictly to be a choice of things good and useful, and cooperating to the end; for how can it be reasonable to choose things which are neither convenient nor honorable nor at all eligible? for be it, as they say, a reasonable election of things having a fitness for the causing felicity; see then to what a beautiful and solemn conclusion their discourse brings them. for the end is (it seems), according to them, to reason rightly in the choice of things which are useful in causing us to reason rightly. lamprias. when i hear these words, my friend, what is laid down seems to me strangely extravagant; and i farther want to know how this happens. diadumenus. you must then be more attentive; for it is not for every one to understand this riddle. hear therefore and answer. is not the end, according to them, to reason rightly in the election of things according to nature? lamprias. so they say. diadumenus. and are these things according to nature chosen as good, or as having some fitness or preferences... either for this end or for something else? lamprias. i think not for anything else but for this end. diadumenus. now, then, having discovered the matter, see what befalls them. they affirm that the end is to reason rightly in the selection of things which are of value in causing us to reason rightly, for they say that we neither have nor understand any other principle either of good or of felicity but this precious rectitude of reasoning in the election of things that are of worth. but there are some who think that this is spoken against antipater, and not against the whole sect; for that he, being pressed by carneades, fell into these fooleries. but as for those things that are against the common conceptions taught in the stoa concerning love, they are all of them concerned in the absurdity. they say youths are deformed who are vicious and foolish, and that the wise are fair; and yet that none of these beautiful ones is either beloved or worthy of being beloved. nor yet is this the worst; but they add, that those who love the deformed ones cease to do so when they are become fair. now whoever knew such a love as is kindled and has its being at the sight of the body's deformity joined with that of the soul, and is quenched and decays at the accession of beauty joined with prudence, justice, and temperance? these men are not unlike to those gnats which love to settle on the dregs of wine, or on vinegar, but shun and fly away from potable and pleasant wine. as for that which they call and term an appearance of beauty, saying that it is the inducement of love,--first, it has no probability, for in those who are very foul and highly wicked there cannot be an appearance of beauty, if indeed (as is said) the wickedness of the disposition fills the face with deformity. and secondly, it is absolutely against all common experience for the deformed to be worthy of love because he one day will be fair and expects to have beauty, but that when he has got it and is become fair and good, he is to be beloved of none. lamprias. love, they say, is a certain hunting after a young person who is as yet indeed undeveloped, but naturally well disposed towards virtue. diadumenus. and what do we now else, o my best friend, but demonstrate that their sect perverts and destroys all our common conceptions with improbable things and unusual expressions? for none would hinder the solicitude of these wise men towards young persons, if it were free from all passionate affection, from being named hunting or love of instruction; but they ought to call love what all men and women understand and call by this name, like that which penelope's suitors in homer seem to acknowledge, who all desired to lie with her; ("odyssey," i. 366) or as jupiter in another place says to juno, for neither goddess yet nor mortal dame e'er kindled in my heart so great a flame. ("iliad." xiv. 315.) thus casting moral philosophy into these matters, in which all is a mazy whirl, with nothing sound, and all perplexed, (euripides, "andromache," 448.) they contemn and deride it, as if boasting themselves to be the only men who observe nature and custom as it ought to be, and who at the same time adapted reason to each man by means of aversions, desires, appetites, pursuits, and impulses. but custom has received no good from their logic, but, like the ear diseased by vain sounds, is filled with difficulty and obscurity,--of which, if you think good, we will elsewhere begin a new discourse. but now we will run through the chief and principal heads of their natural philosophy, which no less confounds the common conceptions than that other concerning ends. ============= first, this is altogether absurd and against sense, to say that is which is not, and things which are not are. but above all that is most absurd which they say of the universe. for, putting round about the circumference of the world an infinite vacuum, they say that the universe is neither a body nor bodiless. it follows then from this that the universe has no being, since with them body only has a being. since therefore it is the part of that which has a being both to do and suffer, and the universe has no being, it follows that the universe will neither do nor suffer. neither will it be in a place; for that which takes up place is a body, and the universe is not a body, therefore the universe exists nowhere. and since that only rests which continues in one and the same place, the universe rests not, because it takes not up place. neither yet is it moved, for what is moved must have a place and space in which to move. moreover, what is moved either moves itself, or suffers motion from another. now, that which is moved by itself has some bents and inclinations proceeding from its gravity or levity; and gravity and levity are either certain habits or faculties or differences of bodies. but the universe is not a body. it follows then of necessity, that the universe is neither, heavy nor light, and consequently, that it has not in itself any principle of motion. nor yet will the universe be moved by any other; for there is nothing else besides the universe. thus are they necessitated to say as they do, that the universe neither rests nor is moved. lastly since according to their opinion it must not be said that the universe is a body, and yet the heaven, the earth, animals, plants, men, and stones are bodies, it follows that that which is no body will have bodies for its parts, and things which have existence will be parts of that which has no existence, and that which is not heavy will have parts that are heavy, and what is not light will have parts that are light;--than which there cannot be any dreams imagined more repugnant to the common conceptions. moreover, there is nothing so evident or so agreeing to common sense as this, that what is not animate is inanimate, and what is not inanimate is animate. and yet they overthrow also this evidence, confessing the universe to be neither animate nor inanimate. besides this, none thinks the universe, of which there is no part wanting to be imperfect; but they deny the universe to be perfect, saying that what is perfect may be defined, but the universe because of its infiniteness cannot be defined. therefore, according to them, there is something which is neither perfect nor imperfect. moreover, the universe is neither a part, since there is nothing greater than it; nor the whole, for the whole (they say) is predicated only of that which is digested into order; but the universe is, through its infiniteness, undetermined and unordered. moreover, there is no other thing which can be the cause of the universe, there being nothing besides the universe; nor is the universe the cause of other things or even of itself; for its nature suffers it not to act, and a cause is understood by its acting. suppose, now, one should ask all men what they imagine nothing to be, and what notion they have of it. would they not answer, that it neither is a cause nor has a cause, that it is neither the whole nor a part that it is neither perfect nor imperfect, that it is neither animate nor inanimate, that it neither is moved nor rests nor subsists, that it is neither corporeal nor incorporeal; and that this and no other thing is meant by nothing? since, then, they alone predicate that of the universe which all others do of nothing, it seems plain that they make the universe and nothing to be the same. time must then be said to be nothing; the same also must be said of predicate, axiom, junction, conjunction, which terms they use more than any of the other philosophers, yet they say that they have no existence. but farther, to say that what is true has no being or subsistence but is comprehended, and that that is comprehensible and credible which no way partakes of the essence of being,--does not this exceed all absurdity? but lest these things should seem to have too much of logical difficulty, let us proceed to such as pertain more to natural philosophy. since, then, as themselves say, jove is of all beginning, midst, and end, (see "orphic fragments," vi. 10 (herm.).) they ought chiefly to have applied themselves to remedy, redress, and reduce to the best order the conceptions concerning the gods, if there were in them anything confused or erroneous; or if not, to have left every one in those sentiments which they had from the laws and custom concerning the divinity:- for neither now nor yesterday but always these things lived, no one knows from whence they came. (sophocles, "antigone," 456.) but these men, having begun (as it were) "from vesta" to disturb the opinions settled and received in every country concerning the gods, have not (to speak sincerely) left anything entire and uncorrupted. for what man is there or ever was, except these, who does not believe the divinity to be immortal and eternal? or what in the common anticipations is more unanimously chanted forth concerning the gods than such things as these:- there the blest gods eternally enjoy their sweet delights; ("odyssey," vi. 46.) and again, both gods immortal, and earth-dwelling men; ("iliad," v. 442.) and again, exempt from sickness and old age are they, and free from toil, and have escaped the stream of roaring acheron? (from pindar.) one may perhaps light upon some nations so barbarous and savage as not to think there is a god; but there was never found any man who, believing a god, did not at the same time believe him immortal and eternal. certainly, those who were called atheists, like theodorus, diagoras, and hippo, durst not say that the divinity is corruptible, but they did not believe that there is anything incorruptible; not indeed admitting the subsistence of an incorruptibility, but keeping the notion of a god. but chrysippus and cleanthes, having filled (as one may say) heaven, earth, air, and sea with gods, have not yet made any one of all these gods immortal or eternal, except jupiter alone, in whom they consume all the rest; so that it is no more suitable for him to consume others than to be consumed himself. for it is alike an infirmity to perish by being resolved into another, and to be saved by being nourished by the resolution of others into himself. now these are not like other of their absurdities, gathered by argument from their suppositions or drawn by consequence from their doctrines; but they themselves proclaim it aloud in their writings concerning the gods, providence, fate, and nature, expressly saying that all the other gods were born, and shall die by the fire, melting away, in their opinion, as if they were of wax or tin. it is indeed as much against common sense that god should be mortal as the man should be immortal; nay, indeed, i do not see what the difference between god and man will be, if god also is a reasonable and corruptible animal. for if they oppose us with this subtle distinction, that man is mortal, and god not mortal but corruptible, see what they get by it. for they will say either that god is at the same time both immortal and corruptible, or else that he neither is mortal nor immortal; the absurdity of which even those cannot exceed who set themselves industriously to devise positions repugnant to common sense. i speak of others; for these men have left no one of the absurdest things unspoken or unattempted. to these things cleanthes, contending for the conflagration of the world, says, that the sun will make the moon and all the other stars like to himself, and will change them into himself. indeed, if the stars, being gods, should contribute anything to the sun towards their own destruction by adding to its conflagration, it would be very ridiculous for us to make prayers to them for our salvation, and to think them the saviours of men, whose nature it is to accelerate their own corruption and dissolution. and yet these men leave nothing unsaid against epicurus, crying out, fie, fie upon him, as confounding their presumption concerning god by taking away providence; for god (they say) is presumed and understood to be not only immortal and happy, but also a lover of men and careful of them and beneficial to them, and herein they say true. now if they who abolish providence take away the preconception concerning god, what do they who say that the gods indeed have care of us, but deny them to be helpful to us, and make them not bestowers of good things but of indifferent ones, giving, to wit, not virtue, but wealth, health, children, and such like things, none of which is helpful, profitable, desirable, or available? or shall we not rather think, that epicurus does not take away the conceptions concerning the gods; but that these stoics scoff at the gods and deride them, saying one is a god of fruits, another of marriage, another a physician, and another a diviner, while yet health, issue, and plenty of fruits are not good things, but indifferent things and unprofitable to those who have them? the third point of the conception concerning the gods is, that the gods do in nothing so much differ from men as in happiness and virtue. but according to chrysippus, they have not so much as this difference. for he says that jupiter does not exceed dion in virtue, but that jupiter and dion, being both wise, are equally aided by one another, when one comes into the motion of the other. for this and none else is the good which the gods do to men, and likewise men to the gods when they are wise. for they say, that a man who falls not short in virtue comes not behind them in felicity, and that he who, tormented with diseases and being maimed in the body, makes himself away, is equally happy with jupiter the saviour, provided he be but wise. but this man neither is nor ever was upon the earth; but there are infinite millions of men unhappy to the highest degree in the state and government of jupiter, which is most excellently administered. now what can be more against sense than that, when jupiter governs exceedingly well, we should be exceedingly miserable? but if (which it is unlawful even to say) he would desire no longer to be a saviour, nor a deliverer, nor a protector, but the contrary to all these glorious appellations, there can no goodness be added to the things that are, either as to their multitude or magnitude, since, as these men say, all men live to the height miserably and wickedly, neither vice receiving addition, nor unhappiness increase. nor is this the worst; but they are angry with menander for saying upon the stage, the chief beginning of men's miseries are things exceeding good; for that this is against sense. and yet they make god, who is good, the beginning of evils. "for matter," they contend, "produced not any evil of itself; for it is without quality, and whatever differences it has, it has received them all from that which moves and forms it." but that which moves and forms it is the reason dwelling in it, since matter is not made to move and form itself. so that of necessity evil, if it come by nothing, must have been produced from that which has no being; but if by some moving principle, from god. but if they think that jupiter has not the command of his parts nor uses every one of them according to his reason, they speak against common sense, and imagine an animal, many of whose parts are not subservient to his will but use their own operations and actions, to which the whole gives no incitation nor begins their motion. for there is nothing which has life so ill compacted as that, against its will, its feet shall go, its tongue speak, its horns push, or its teeth bite. the most of which things god must of necessity suffer, if the wicked, being parts of him, do against his will lie, cheat, rob, and murder one another. but if, as chrysippus says, the very least part cannot possibly behave itself otherwise than according to jupiter's pleasure, and if every living thing is so framed by nature as to rest and move according as he inclines it and as he turns, stays, and disposes it, this saying is more impious than the first. (see nauck's "tragic fragments," p. 704 (no. 345).) for it were more tolerable to say that many parts of jupiter are, through his weakness and want of power, hurried on to do many absurd things against his nature and will, than that there is not any intemperance or wickedness of which jupiter is not the cause. moreover, since they affirm the world to be a city and the stars citizens, if this be so, there must be also tribes-men and magistrates, the sun must be some consul, and the evening star a praetor or mayor of a city. now i know not whether any one that shall go about to disprove such things will not show himself more ridiculous than those who assert and affirm them. is it not therefore against sense to say that the seed is more and greater than that which is produced of it? for we see that nature in all animals and plants, even those that are wild, has taken small, slender, and scarce visible things for principles of generation to the greatest. for it does not only from a grain of wheat produce an ear-bearing stalk, or a vine from the stone of a grape; but from a small berry or acorn which has escaped being eaten by the bird, kindling and setting generation on fire (as it were) from a little spark, it sends forth the stock of a bush, or the tall body of an oak, palm, or pine tree. whence also they say that seed is in greek called [greek omitted], as it were, the [greek omitted] or the winding up of a great mass in a little compass; and that nature has the name of [greek omitted], as if it were the inflation [greek omitted] and diffusion of reason and numbers opened and loosened by it. but now, in opposition to this, they hold that fire is the seed of the world, which shall after the conflagration change into seed the world, which will then have a copious nature from a smaller body and bulk, and possess an infinite space of vacuum filled by its increase; and the world being made, the form again recedes and settles, the matter being after the generation gathered and contracted into itself. you may hear them and read many of their writings, in which they jangle with the academics, and cry out against them as confounding all things with their paradox of indistinguishable identity, and as vehemently contending that there is but one quality in two substances. and yet there is no man who understands not this, and would not on the contrary think it wonderful and extremely strange if there should not in all time be found one kind of dove exactly and in all respects like to another dove, a bee to a bee, a grain of wheat to a grain of wheat, or (as the proverb has it) one fig to another. but these things are plainly against common sense which the stoics say and feign,--that there are in one substance two individual qualities, and that the same substance, which has particularly one quality, when another quality is added, receives and equally conserves them both. for if there may be two, there may be also three, four, and five, and even more than you can name, in one and the same substance; i say not in its different parts, but all equally in the whole, though even infinite in number. for chrysippus says, that jupiter and the world are like to man, as is also providence to the soul; when therefore the conflagration shall be, jupiter, who alone of all the gods is incorruptible, will retire into providence, and they being together, will both perpetually remain in the one substance of the ether. but leaving now the gods, and beseeching them to give these stoics common sense and a common understanding, let us look into their doctrines concerning the elements. it is against the common conceptions that one body should be the place of another, or that a body should penetrate through a body, neither of them containing any vacuity, but the full passing into the full, and in which there is no vacuity--but is full and has no place by reason of its continuity--receiving the mixture. but these men, not thrusting one thing into one, nor yet two or three or ten together, but jumbling all the parts of the world, being cut piecemeal, into any one thing which they shall first light on, and saying that the very least which is perceived by sense will contain the greatest that shall come unto it, boldly frame a new doctrine, proving themselves here, as in many other things, to be holding for their suppositions things repugnant to common sense. and presently upon this they are forced to admit into their discourse many monstrous and strange positions, mixing whole bodies with whole; of which this also is one, that three are four. for this others put as an example of those things which cannot be conceived even in thought. but to the stoics it is a matter of truth, that when one cup of wine is mixed with two of water, if it is not to disappear and if the mixture is to be equalized, it must be spread through the whole and be confounded therewith, so as to make that which was one two by the equalization of the mixture. for the one remains, but is extended as much as two, and thus is equal to the double of itself. now if it happens in the mixture with two to take the measure of two in the diffusion, this is together the measure both of three and four,--of three because one is mixed with two, and of four because, being mixed with two, it has an equal quantity with those with which it is mixed. now this fine subtilty is a consequence of their putting bodies into a body, and so likewise is the unintelligibleness of the manner how one is contained in the other. for it is of necessity that, of bodies passing one into another by mixture, the one should not contain and the other be contained, nor the one receive and the other be received within; for this would not be a mixture, but a contiguity and touching of the superficies, the one entering in, and the other enclosing it without, and the rest of the parts remaining unmixed and pure, and so it would be merely many different things. but there being a necessity, according to their axiom of mixture, that the things which are mixed should be mingled one within the other, and that the same things should together be contained by being within, and by receiving contain the other, and that neither of them could possibly exist again as it was before, it comes to pass that both the subjects of the mixture mutually penetrate each other, and that there is not any part of either remaining separate, but that they are necessarily all filled with each other. here now that famed leg of arcesilaus comes in, with much laughter insulting over their absurdities; for if these mixtures are through the whole, what should hinder but that, a leg being cut off and putrefied and cast into the sea and diffused, not only antigonus's fleet (as arcesilaus said) might sail through it, but also xerxes's twelve hundred ships, together with the grecians' three hundred galleys, might fight in it? for the progress will not henceforth fail, nor the lesser cease to be in the greater; or else the mixture will be at an end, and the extremity of it, touching where it shall end, will not pass through the whole, but will give over being mingled. but if the mixture is through the whole, the leg will not indeed of itself give the greeks room for the sea-fight, for to this there is need of putrefaction and change; but if one glass or but one drop of wine shall fall from hence into the aegean or cretan sea, it will pass into the ocean or main atlantic sea, not lightly touching its superficies, but being spread quite through it in depth, breadth, and length. and this chrysippus admits, saying immediately in his first book of natural questions, that there is nothing to hinder one drop of wine from being mixed with the whole sea. and that we may not wonder at this, he says that this one drop will by mixtion extend through the whole world; than which i know not anything that can appear more absurd. and this also is against sense, that there is not in the nature of bodies anything either supreme or first or last, in which the magnitude of the body may terminate; but that there is always some phenomenon beyond the body, still going on which carries the subject to infinity and undeterminateness. for one body cannot be imagined greater or less than another, if both of them may by their parts proceed in infinitum; but the nature of inequality is taken away. for of things that are esteemed unequal, the one falls short in its last parts, and the other goes on and exceeds. now if there is no inequality, it follows that there is no unevenness nor roughness of bodies; for unevenness is the inequality of the same superficies with itself, and roughness is an unevenness joined with hardness; neither of which is left us by those who terminate no body in its last part, but extend them all by the multitude of their parts unto an infinity. and yet is it not evident that a man consists of more parts than a finger, and the world of more than a man? this indeed all men know and understand, unless they become stoics; but if they are once stoics, they on the contrary say and think that a man has no more parts than a finger, nor the world than a man. for division reduces bodies to an infinity; and of infinites neither is more or less or exceeds in multitude, or the parts of the remainder will cease to be divided and to afford a multitude of themselves. lamprias. how then do they extricate themselves out of these difficulties? diadumenus. surely with very great cunning and courage. for chrysippus says: "if we are asked, if we have any parts, and how many, and of what and how many parts they consist, we are to use a distinction, making it a position that the whole body is compacted of the head, trunk, and legs, as if that were all which is inquired and doubted of. but if they extend their interrogation to the last parts, no such thing is to be undertaken, but we are to say that they consist not of any certain parts, nor yet of so many, nor of infinite, nor of finite." and i seem to myself to have used his very words, that you may perceive how he maintains the common notions, forbidding us to think of what or how many parts every body is compacted, and whether of infinite or finite. for if there were any medium between finite and infinite, as the indifferent is between good and evil, he should, by telling us what that is, have solved the difficulty. but if--as that which is not equal is presently understood to be unequal, and that which is not mortal to be immortal--we also understand that which is not finite to be immediately infinite, to say that a body consists of parts neither finite nor infinite is, in my opinion, the same thing as to affirm that an argument is compacted of positions neither true nor false.... to this he with a certain youthful rashness adds, that in a pyramid consisting of triangles, the sides inclining to the juncture are unequal, and yet do not exceed one another in that they are greater. thus does he keep the common notions. for if there is anything greater and not exceeding, there will be also something less and not deficient, and so also something unequal which neither exceeds nor is deficient; that is, there will be an unequal thing equal, a greater not greater, and a less not less. see it yet farther, in what manner he answered democritus, inquiring philosophically and to the point, if a cone is divided by a plane parallel with its base, what is to be thought of the superficies of its segments, whether they are equal or unequal; for if they are unequal, they will render the cone uneven, receiving many steplike incisions and roughnesses; but if they are equal, the sections will be equal, and the cone will seem to have the same qualities as the cylinder, to wit, to be composed not of unequal but of equal circles; which is most absurd. here, that he may convince democritus of ignorance, he says, that the superficies are neither equal or unequal, but that the bodies are unequal, because the superficies are neither equal nor unequal. indeed to assert this for a law, that bodies are unequal while the superficies are not unequal, is the part of a man who takes to himself a wonderful liberty of writing whatever comes into his head. for reason and manifest evidence, on the contrary, give us to understand, that the superficies of unequal bodies are unequal, and that the bigger the body is, the greater also is the superficies, unless the excess, by which it is the greater, is void of a superficies. for if the superficies of the greater bodies do not exceed those of the less, but sooner fail, a part of that body which has an end will be without an end and infinite. for if he says that he is compelled to this. for those rabbeted incisions, which he suspects in a cone, are made by the inequality of the body, and not of the superficies. it is ridiculous therefore not to reckon the superficies, and to leave the inequality in the bodies themselves. but to persist still in this matter, what is more repugnant to sense than the imagining of such things? for if we admit that one superficies is neither equal nor unequal to another, we may say also of magnitude and of number, that one is neither equal nor unequal to another; and this, not having anything that we can call or think to be a neuter or medium between equal and unequal. besides, if there are superficies neither equal nor unequal, what hinders but there may be also circles neither equal nor unequal? for indeed these superficies of conic sections are circles. and if circles, why may not also their diameters be neither equal nor unequal? and if so, why not also angles, triangles, parallelograms, parallelopipeds, and bodies? for if the longitudes are neither equal nor unequal to one another, so will the weight, percussion, and bodies be neither equal nor unequal. how then dare these men inveigh against those who introduce vacuums, and suppose that there are indivisible atoms, and who say that motion and rest are not incompatible with each other, when they themselves affirm such axioms as these to be false: if any things are not equal to one another, they are unequal to one another; and the same things are not equal and unequal to one another? but when he says that there is something greater and yet not exceeding, it were worth the while to ask, whether these things quadrate with one another. for if they quadrate, how is either the greater? and if they do not quadrate, how can it be but the one must exceed and the other fall short? for if neither of these are true, the other both will and will not quadrate with the greater. for those who keep not the common conceptions must of necessity fall into such perplexities. it is moreover against sense to say that nothing touches another; nor is this less absurd, that bodies touch one another, but touch by nothing. for they are necessitated to admit these things, who allow not the least parts of a body, but assume something before that which appears to touch, and never ceases to proceed still farther. what, therefore, these men principally object to the patrons of those indivisible bodies called atoms is this, that there is neither a touching of the whole by the whole, nor of the parts by the parts; for that the one makes not a touching but a mixture, and that the other is not possible, these individuals having no parts. how then do not they themselves fall into the same inconvenience, leaving no first or last part, whilst they say, that whole bodies mutually touch one another by a term or extremity and not by a part? but this term is not a body; therefore one body shall touch one another by that which is incorporeal, and again shall not touch, that which is incorporeal coming between them. and if it shall touch, the body shall both do and suffer something by that which is incorporeal. for it is the nature of bodies mutually to do and suffer, and to touch. but if the body has a touching by that which is incorporeal, it will have also a contact, and a mixture, and a coalition. again, in these contacts and mixtures the extremities of the bodies must either remain, or not remain but be corrupted. now both of these are against sense. for neither do they themselves admit corruptions and generations of incorporeal things; nor can there be a mixture and coalition of bodies retaining their own extremities. for the extremity determines and constitutes the nature of the body; and mixtions, unless the mutual laying of parts by parts are thereby understood, wholly confound all those that are mixed. and, as these men say, we must admit the corruption of extremities in mixtures, and their generation again in the separation of them. but this none can easily understand. now by what bodies mutually touch each other, by the same they press, thrust, and crush each other. now that this should be done or take place in things that are incorporeal, is impossible and not so much as to be imagined. but yet this they would constrain us to conceive. for if a sphere touch a plane by a point, it is manifest that it may be also drawn over the plane upon a point; and if the superficies of it is painted with vermilion, it will imprint a red line on the plane; and if it is fiery hot, it will burn the plane. now for an incorporeal thing to color, or a body to be burned by that which is incorporeal, is against sense. but if we should imagine an earthen or glassy sphere to fall from on high upon a plane of stone, it were against reason to think it would not be broken, being struck against that which is hard and solid; but it would be more absurd that it should be broken, falling upon an extremity or point that is incorporeal. so that the presumptions concerning things incorporeal and corporeal are wholly disturbed, or rather taken away, by their joining to them many impossibilities. it is also against common sense, that there should be a time future and past, but no time present; and that erewhile and lately subsist, but now is nothing at all. yet this often befalls the stoics, who admit not the least time between, nor will allow the present to be indivisible; but whatsoever any one thinks to take and understand as present, one part of that they say to be future, and the other part past; so that there is no part remaining or left of the present time: but of that which is said to be present, one part is distributed to the future, the other to the past. therefore one of these two things follows: either that, holding there was a time and there will be a time, we must deny there is a time; or we must hold that there is a time present, part of which has already been and part will be, and say that of that which now is, one part is future and the other past; and that of now, one part is before and the other behind; and that now is that which is neither yet now nor any longer now; for that which is past is no longer now, and that which is to come is not yet now. and dividing thus the present, they must needs say of the year and of the day, that part of it was of the year or day past, and part will be of the year or day to come; and that of what is together, there is a part before and a part after. for no less are they perplexed, confounding together these terms, not yet and already and no longer and now and not now. but all other men suppose, esteem, and think erewhile and awhile hence to be different parts of time from now, which is followed by the one and preceded by the other. but archedemus, saying that now is the beginning and juncture of that which is past and that which is near at hand, has (as it seems) without perceiving it thereby destroyeth all time. for if now is no time, but only a term or extremity of time, and if every part of time is such as now, all time seems to have no parts, but to be wholly dissolved into terms, joints, and beginnings. but chrysippus, desiring to show more artifice in his division, in his book of vacuity and some others, says, that the past and future time are not, but have subsisted (or will subsist), and that the present only is; but in his third, fourth, and fifth books concerning parts, he asserts, that of the present time one part is past, the other to come. thus it comes to pass, that he divides subsisting time into non-subsisting parts of a subsisting total, or rather leaves nothing at all of time subsisting, if the present has no part but what is either future or past. these men's conception therefore of time is not unlike the grasping of water, which, the harder it is held, all the more slides and runs away. as to actions and motions, all evidence is utterly confounded. for if now is divided into past and future, it is of necessity that what is now moved partly has been moved and partly shall be moved, that the end and beginning of motion have been taken away, that nothing of any work has been done first, nor shall anything be last, the actions being distributed with time. for as they say that of present time, part is past and part to come; so of that which is doing, it will be said that part is done and part shall be done. when therefore had to dine, to write, to walk, a beginning, and when shall they have an end, if every one who is dining has dined and shall dine, and every one who is walking has walked and shall walk? but this is, as it is said, of all absurdities the most absurd, that if he who now lives has already lived and shall live, then to live neither had beginning nor shall have end; but every one of us, as it seems, was born without commencing to live, and shall die without ceasing to live. for if there is no last part, but he who lives has something of the present still remaining for the future, to say "socrates shall live" will never be false so long as it shall be true to say "socrates lives"; and so long also will it be false to say "socrates is dead." so that, if "socrates shall live" is true in infinite parts of time, it will in no part of time be true to say "socrates is dead." and verily what end will there be of a work, and where will you terminate an action, if, as often as it is true to say "this is doing," it is likewise true to say "this shall be doing"? for he will lie who shall say, there will be an end of plato's writing and disputing; since plato will never give over writing and disputing, if it is never false to say of him who disputes that he shall dispute, and of him who writes that he shall write. moreover, there will be no part of that which now is, but either has been or is to be, and is either past or future; but of what has been and is to be, of past and future, there is no sense; wherefore there is absolutely no sense of anything. for we neither see what is past and future, nor do we hear or have any other sense of what has been or is to be. nothing, then, even what is present, is to be perceived by sense, if of the present, part is always future and part past,--if part has been and part is to be. now they indeed say, that epicurus does intolerable things and violates the conceptions, in moving all bodies with equal celerity, and admitting none of them to be swifter than another. and yet it is much more intolerable and farther remote from sense, that nothing can be overtaken by another:- not though adrastus's swift-footed steed should chase the tortoise slow, as the proverb has it. now this must of necessity fall out, if things move according to prius and posterius, and the intervals through which they pass are (as these men's tenet is) divisible in infinitum; for if the tortoise is but a furlong before the horse, they who divide this furlong in infinitum, and move them both according to prius and posterius, will never bring the swiftest to the slowest; the slower always adding some interval divisible into infinite spaces. now to affirm that, water being poured from a bowl or cup, it will never be all poured out, is it not both against common sense, and a consequence of what these men say? for no man can understand the motion according to prius of things infinitely divisible to be consummated; but leaving always somewhat divisible, it will make all the effusion, all the running and flux of a liquid, motion of a solid, and fall of an heavy thing imperfect. i pass by many absurdities of theirs, touching only such as are against sense. the dispute concerning increase is indeed ancient; for the question, as chrysippus says, was put by epicharmus. now, whereas those of the academy think that the doubt is not very easy and ready all of a sudden to be cleared, these men have mightily exclaimed against them, and accused them of taking away the fixed ideas, and yet themselves are so far from preserving the common notions, that they pervert even sense itself. for the discourse is simple, and these men grant the suppositions,--that all particular substances flow and are carried, some of them emitting forth somewhat from themselves, and others receiving things coming from elsewhere; and that the things to which there is made an accession or from which there is a decession by numbers and multitudes, do not remain the same, but become others by the said accessions, the substance receiving a change; and that these changes are not rightly called by custom increasings or diminutions, but it is fitter they should be styled generations and corruptions, because they drive by force from one state to another, whereas to increase and be diminished are passions of a body that is subject and permanent. these things being thus in a manner said and delivered, what would these defenders of evidence and canonical masters of common conceptions have? every one of us (they say) is double, twin-like, and composed of a double nature; not as the poets feigned of the molionidae, that they in some parts grow together and in some parts are separated,--but every one of us has two bodies, having the same color, the same figure, the same weight and place.... these things were never before seen by any man; but these men alone have discerned this composition, doubleness, and ambiguity, how every one of us is two subjects, the one substance, the other quality; and the one is in perpetual flux and motion, neither increasing nor being diminished nor remaining altogether; the other remains and increases and is diminished, and suffers all things contrary to the former, with which it is so concorporated, conjoined, and confounded, that it exhibits not any difference to be perceived by sense. indeed, lynceus is said to have penetrated stones and oaks with his sight; and a certain man sitting on a watch-tower in sicily beheld the ships of the carthaginians setting forth from their harbor, which was a day and a night's sail from thence. callicrates and myrmecides are said to have made chariots that might be covered with the wings of a fly, and to have engraved verses of homer on a sesame seed. but none ever discerned or discovered this diversity in us; nor have we perceived ourselves to be double, in one part always flowing, and in the other remaining the same from our birth even to our death. but i make the discourse more simple, since they make four subjects in every one, or rather every one of us to be four. but two are sufficient to show their absurdity. for if, when we hear pentheus in the tragedy affirm that he sees two suns and two cities of thebes, (euripides, "bacchae," 918.) we say that he does not see, but that his sight is dazzled, he being transported and troubled in his head; why do we not bid those farewell, who assert not one city alone, but all men and animals, and all trees, vessels, instruments, and clothes, to be double and composed of two, as men who constrain us to dote rather than to understand? but this feigning other natures of subjects must perhaps be pardoned them; for there appears no other invention by which they can maintain and uphold the augmentations of which they are so fond. but by what cause moved, or for the adorning of what other suppositions, they frame in a manner innumerable differences and forms of bodies in the soul, there is none can say, unless it be that they remove, or rather wholly abdicate and destroy, the common and usual notions, to introduce other foreign and strange ones. for it is very absurd that, making all virtues and vices--and with them all arts, memories, fancies, passions, impulses, and assents--to be bodies, they should affirm that they neither lie nor subsist in any subject, leaving them for a place one only hole, like a prick in the heart, where they crowd the principal part of the soul, enclosed with so many bodies, that a very great number of them lie hid even from those who think they can spare and distinguish them one from another. nay that they should not only make them bodies, but also intelligent beings, and even a swarm of such creatures, not friendly or mild, but a multitude rebellious and having a hostile mind, and should so make of each one of us a park or menagerie or trojan horse, or whatever else we may call their inventions,--this is the very height of contempt and contradiction to evidence and custom. but they say, that not only the virtues and vices, not only the passions, as anger, envy, grief, and maliciousness, not only comprehensions, fancies, and ignorances, not only arts, as shoemaking and working in brass, are animals; but besides these, also they make even the operations bodies and animals, saying that walking is an animal, as also dancing, supposing, saluting, and railing. the consequence of this is that laughing and weeping are also animals; and if so, then also are coughing, sneezing, groaning, spitting, blowing the nose, and other such like things sufficiently known. neither have they any cause to take it ill that they are by reason, proceeding leisurely, reduced to this, if they shall call to mind how chrysippus, in his first book of natural questions, argues thus: "is not night a body? and are not then the evening, dawning, and midnight bodies? or is not a day a body? is not then the first day of the month a body? and the tenth, the fifteenth, and the thirtieth, are they not bodies? is not a month a body? summer, autumn, and the year, are they not bodies?" these things they maintain against the common conceptions; but those which follow they hold also against their own, engendering that which is most hot by refrigeration, and that which is most subtile by condensation. for the soul, to wit, is a substance most hot and most subtile. but this they make by the refrigeration and condensation of the body, changing, as it were, by induration the spirit, which of vegetative is made animal. moreover, they say that the sun became animated, his moisture changing into intellectual fire. behold how the sun is imagined to be engendered by refrigeration! xenophanes indeed, when one told him that he had seen eels living in hot water, answered, we will boil them then in cold. but if these men engender heat by refrigeration and lightness by condensation, it follows, they must also generate cold things by heat, thick things by dissolution, and heavy things by rarefaction, that so they may keep some proportion in their absurdity. and do they not also determine the substance and generation of conception itself, even against the common conceptions? for conception is a certain imagination, and imagination an impression in the soul. now the nature of the soul is an exhalation, in which it is difficult for an impression to be made because of its tenuity, and for which it is impossible to keep an impression it may have received. for its nutriment and generation, consisting of moist things, have continual accession and consumption. and the mixture of respiration with the air always makes some new exhalation which is altered and changed by the flux of the air coming from abroad and again going out. for one may more easily imagine that a stream of running water can retain figures, impressions, and images, than that a spirit can be carried in vapors and humors, and continually mingled with another idle and strange breath from without. but these men so far forget themselves, that, having defined the conceptions to be certain stored-up intelligences, and memoirs to be constant and habitual impressions, and having wholly fixed the sciences, as having stability and firmness, they presently place under them a basis and seat of a slippery substance, easy to be dissipated and in perpetual flux and motion. now the common conception of an element and principle, naturally imprinted in almost all men, is this, that it is simple, unmixed, and uncompounded. for that is not an element or principle which is mixed; but those things are so of which it is mixed. but these men, making god, who is the principle of all things, to be an intellectual body and a mind seated in matter, pronounce him to be neither simple nor uncompounded, but to be composed of and by another; matter being of itself indeed without reason and void of quality, and yet having simplicity and the propertv of a principle. if, then, god is not incorporeal and immaterial, he participates of matter as a principle. for if matter and reason are one and the same thing, they have not rightly defined matter to be reasonless; but if they are different things, then is god constituted of them both, and is not a simple but compound thing, having to the intellectual taken the corporeal from matter. moreover, calling these four bodies, earth, water, air, and fire, the first elements, they do (i know not how) make some of them simple and pure, and others compound and mixed. for they maintain that earth and water hold together neither themselves nor other things, but preserve their unity by the participation of air and force of fire; but that air and fire do both fortify themselves by their own strength, or being mixed with the other two, give them force, permanence, and subsistence. how, then, is either earth or water an element, if neither of them is either simple, or first or self-sufficient, but if each one wants somewhat from without to contain and keep it in its being? for they have not left so much as a thought of their substance; but this discourse concerning the earth has much confusion and uncertainty, when they say that it subsists of itself; for if the earth is of itself, how has it need of the air to fix and contain it? but neither the earth nor water can any more be said to be of itself; but the air, drawing together and thickening the matter, has made the earth, and again dissolving and mollifying it, has produced the water. neither of these then is an element, since something else has contributed being and generation to them both. moreover, they say that subsistence and matter are subject to qualities, and do so in a manner define them; and again, they make the qualities to be also bodies. but these things have much perplexity. for if qualities have a peculiar substance, for which they both are and are called bodies, they need no other substance; for they have one of their own. but if they have under them in common only that which the stoic school calls essence and matter, it is manifest they do but participate of the body; for they are not bodies. but the subject and recipient must of necessity differ from those things which it receives and to which it is subject. but these men see by halves; for they say indeed that matter is void of quality, but they will not call qualities immaterial. now how can they make a body without quality, who understand no quality without a body? for the reason which joins a body to all quality suffers not the understanding to comprehend any body without some quality. either, therefore, he who oppugns incorporeal quality seems also to oppugn unqualified matter; or separating the one from the other, he mutually parts them both. as for the reason which some pretend, that matter is called unqualified not because it is void of all quality, but because it has all qualities, it is most of all against sense. for no man calls that unqualified which is capable of every quality, nor that impassible which is by nature always apt to suffer all things, nor that immovable which is moved every way. and this doubt is not solved, that, however matter is always understood with quality, yet it is understood to be another thing and differing from quality. end of six------------contradictions of the stoics. i first lay this down for an axiom, that there ought to be seen in men's lives an agreement with their doctrines. for it is not so necessary that the pleader (as aeschines has it) and the law speak one and the same thing, as that the life of a philosopher be consonant to his speech. for the speech of a philosopher is a law of his own and voluntarily imposed on himself, unless they esteem philosophy to be a game, or an acuteness in disputing invented for the gaining of applause, and not--what it really is--a thing deserving our greatest study. since, then, there are in their discourses many things written by zeno himself, many by cleanthes, and most of all by chrysippus, concerning policy, governing, and being governed, concerning judging and pleading, and yet there is not to be found in any of their lives either leading of armies, making of laws, going to parliament, pleading before the judges, fighting for their country, travelling on embassies, or making of public gifts, but they have all, feeding (if i may so say) on rest as on the lotus, led their whole lives, and those not short but very long ones, in foreign countries, amongst disputations, books, and walkings; it is manifest that they have lived rather according to the writings and sayings of others than their own professions, having spent all their days in that repose which epicurus and hieronymus so much commend. chrysippus indeed himself, in his fourth book of lives, thinks there is no difference between a scholastic life and a voluptuous one. i will set down here his very words: "they who are of opinion that a scholastic life is from the very beginning most suitable to philosophers seem to me to be in an error, thinking that men ought to follow this for the sake of some recreation or some other thing like to it, and in that manner to spin out the whole course of their life; that is, if it may be explained, to live at ease. for this opinion of theirs is not to be concealed, many of them delivering it clearly, and not a few more obscurely." who therefore did more grow old in this scholastic life than chrysippus, cleanthes, diogenes, zeno, and antipater, who left their countries not out of any discontent but that they might quietly enjoy their delight, studying, and disputing at their leisure. to verify which, aristocreon, the disciple and intimate friend of chrysippus, having erected his statue of brass upon a pillar, engraved on it these verses:- this brazen statue aristocreon to's friend chrysippus newly here has put, whose sharp-edged wit, like sword of champion, did academic knots in sunder cut. such a one then was chrysippus, an old man, a philosopher, one who praised the regal and civil life, and thought there was no difference between a scholastic and voluptuous one. but those others of them who intermeddle in state affairs act yet more contradictorily to their own doctrines. for they govern, judge, consult, make laws, punish, and honor, as if those were indeed cities in the government of which they concern themselves, those truly counsellors and judges who are at any time allotted to such offices, those generals who are chosen by suffrages, and those laws which were made by clisthenes, lycurgus, and solon, whom they affirm to have been vicious men and fools. thus even over the management of state affairs are they at variance with themselves. indeed antipater, in his writings concerning the difference between cleanthes and chrysippus, has related that zeno and cleanthes would not be made citizens of athens, lest they might seem to injure their own countries. i shall not much insist upon it, that, if they did well, chrysippus acted amiss in suffering himself to be enrolled as a member of that city. but this is very contradictory and absurd, that, removing their persons and their lives so far off amongst strangers, they reserved their names for their countries; which is the same thing as if a man, leaving his wife, and cohabiting and bedding with another, and getting children on her, should yet refuse to contract marriage with the second, lest he might seem to wrong the former. again, chrysippus, writing in his treatise of rhetoric, that a wise man will so plead and so act in the management of a commonwealth, as if riches, glory, and health were really good, confesses that his speeches are inextricable and impolitic, and his doctrines unsuitable for the uses and actions of human life. it is moreover a doctrine of zeno's, that temples are not to be built to the gods; for that a temple is neither a thing of much value nor holy; since no work of carpenters and handicrafts-men can be of much value. and yet they who praise these things as well and wisely said are initiated in the sacred mysteries, go up to the citadel (where minerva's temple stands), adore the shrines, and adorn with garlands the sacraries, being the works of carpenters and mechanical persons. again, they think that the epicureans, who sacrifice to the gods and yet deny them to meddle with the government of the world, do thereby refute themselves; whereas they themselves are more contrary to themselves, sacrificing on altars and in temples, which they affirm ought not to stand nor to have been built. moreover, zeno admits (as plato does) several virtues having various distinctions--to wit, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice--as being indeed inseparable, but yet divers and different from one another. but again, defining every one of them, he says that fortitude is prudence in executing, justice prudence in distributing, as being one and the same virtue, but seeming to differ in its relation to different affairs when it comes to action. nor does zeno alone seem to contradict himself in these matters; but chrysippus also, who blames ariston for saying that the other virtues are different habits of one and the same virtue, and yet defends zeno, who in this manner defines every one of the virtues. and cleanthes, having in his commentaries concerning nature said, that vigor is the striking of fire, which, if it is sufficient in the soul to perform the duties presented to it, is called force and strength; subjoins these very words: "now this force and strength, when it is in things apparent and to be persisted in, is continence; when in things to be endured, it is fortitude; when about worthiness, it is justice; and when about choosing or refusing, it is temperance." against him, who said, give not thy judgment till both sides are heard, (in the "pseudo-phocylidea," vs. 87 (bergk).) zeno on the contrary made use of such an argument as this: "if he who spake first has plainly proved his cause, the second is not to be heard, for the question is at an end; and if he has not proved it, it is the same case as if being cited he did not appear, or appearing did nothing but wrangle; so that, whether he has proved or not proved his cause, the second is not to be heard." and yet he who made this dilemma has written against plato's commonweal, dissolved sophisms, and exhorted his scholars to learn logic, as enabling them to do the same. now plato has either proved or not proved those things which he writ in his commonweal; but in neither case was it necessary to write against him, but wholly superfluous and vain. the same may be said concerning sophisms. chrysippus is of opinion, that young students should first learn logic, secondly, ethics, and after these, physics, and likewise in this to meddle last of all with the disputes concerning the gods. now these things having been often said by him, it will suffice to set down what is found in his fourth book of lives, being thus word for word: "first, then, it seems to me, according as it has been rightly said by the ancients, that there are three kinds of philosophical speculations, logical, ethical, and physical, and that of these, the logical ought to be placed first, the ethical second, and the physical third, and that of the physical, the discourse concerning the gods ought to be the last; wherefore also the traditions concerning this have been styled [greek omitted], or the endings." but that very discourse concerning the gods, which he says ought to be placed the last, he usually places first and sets before every moral question. for he is seen not to say anything concerning the ends, or concerning justice, or concerning good and evil, or concerning marriage and the education of children, or concerning the law and the commonwealth; but, as those who propose decrees to states set before them the words to good fortune, so he also premises something of jupiter, fate, providence, and of the world's being one and finite and maintained by one power. none of which any one can be persuaded to believe, who has not penetrated deeply into the discourses of natural philosophy. hear what he says of this in his third book of the gods: "for there is not to be found any other beginning or any other generation of justice, but what is from jupiter and common nature. from thence must every such thing have its beginning, if we will say anything concerning good and evil." and again, in his natural positions he says: "for one cannot otherwise or more properly come to the discourse of good and evil, to the virtues, or to felicity, than from common nature and the administration of the world." and going farther on, he adds: "for to these we must annex the discourse concerning good and evil, there being no other better beginning or relation thereof, and the speculation of nature being learned for nothing else, but to understand the difference between good and evil." according to chrysippus, therefore, the natural science is both before and after the moral; or rather, it is an inversion of order altogether absurd, if this must be put after those things none of which can be comprehended without this; and his contradicting himself is manifest, when he asserts the discourse of nature to be the beginning of that concerning good and evil, and yet commands it to be delivered, not before, but after it. now, if any one shall say that chrysippus in his book concerning the use of speech has written, that he who applies himself to logic first needs not absolutely to abstain from the rest, but should take as much of them as shall fall in his way, he will indeed say the truth, but will withal confirm the fault. for he oppugns himself, one while commanding that the science concerning god should be taken last and for a conclusion, as being therefore also called [greek omitted], and again, another while saying that this is to be learned together with the very first. for order is at an end, if all things must be used at all times. but this is more, that having made the science concerning the gods the beginning of that concerning good and evil, he bids not those who apply themselves to the ethics to begin with that; but learning these, to take of that also as it shall come in their way, and then to go from these to that, without which, he says, there is no beginning or entrance upon these. as for disputing on both sides, he says, that he does not universally reject it, but exhorts us to use it with caution, as is done in pleadings, not with the aim really to disprove, but to dissolve their probability. "for to those," says he, "who endeavor a suspension of assent concerning all things, it is convenient to do this, and it co-operates to what they desire; but as for those who would work and constitute in us a certain science according to which we shall professedly live, they ought, on the contrary, to state the first principles, and to direct their novices who are entered from the beginning to the end; and where there is occasion to make mention of contrary discourses, to dissolve their probability, as is done in pleadings." for this he hath said in express words. now that it is absurd for philosophers to think that they ought to set down the contrary opinion, not with all its reasons, but like pleaders, disabling it, as if they contended not for truth but victory, we have elsewhere spoken against him. but that he himself has, not in one or two places in his disputations, but frequently, confirmed the discourses which are contrary to his own opinions, and that stoutly, and with so much earnestness and contention that it was not for every one to understand what he liked,--the stoics themselves affirm, who admire the man's acuteness, and think that carneades said nothing of his own, but that catching hold of those arguments which chrysippus alleged for the contrary opinion, he assaulted with them his positions, and often cried out, wretch, thy own strength will thee undo, ("iliad", vi. 407.) as if chrysippus had given great advantages against himself to those who would disturb and calumniate his doctrines. but of those things which he has written against custom they are so proud and boastful, that they fear not to affirm, that all the sayings of all the academics together, if they were collected into one body, are not comparable to what chrysippus has writ in disparagement of the senses. which is an evident sign of the ignorance or self-love of the speakers; but this indeed is true, that being afterwards desirous to defend custom and the senses, he was inferior to himself, and the latter treatise was much weaker than the former. so that he contradicts himself; for having always directed the proposing of an adversary's opinions not with approbation, but with a demonstration of their falsity, he has showed himself more acute in opposing than defending his own doctrines; and having admonished others to take heed of contrary arguments, as withdrawing comprehension, he has been more sedulous in framing such proofs as take away comprehension, than such as confirm it. and yet he plainly shows that he himself feared this, writing thus in his fourth book of lives: "repugnant arguments and probabilities on the contrary side are not rashly to be proposed, but with caution, lest the hearers distracted by them should let go their conceptions, not being able sufficiently to apprehend the solutions, but so weakly that their comprehensions may easily be shaken. for even those who have, according to custom, preconceived both sensible phenomena and other things depending on the senses quickly forego them, being distracted by megarian interrogatories and by others more numerous and forcible." i would willingly therefore ask the stoics, whether they think these megarian interrogatories to be more forcible than those which chrysippus has written in six books against custom; or rather this should be asked of chrysippus himself. for observe what he has written about the megarian reason, in his book concerning the use of speech, thus: "some such things fell out in the discourse of stilpo and menedemus; for, whereas they were renowned for wisdom, their disputing has turned to their reproach, their arguments being part clumsy, and the rest plainly sophistical." and yet, good sir, you fear lest those arguments which you deride and term the disgrace of their proposers, as having a manifest faultiness, should divert some from comprehension. and did not you yourself, writing so many books against custom, in which you have added whatever you could invent, ambitiously striving to exceed arcesilaus, expect that you should perplex some of your readers? for neither does he use slender arguments against custom; but as if he were pleading, he with some passion in himself stirs up the affections of others, telling his opponent that he talks foolishly and labors in vain. and that he may leave no room to deny his speaking of contradictions, he has in his natural positions written thus: "it may be lawful for those who comprehend a thing to argue on the contrary side, applying to it that kind of defence which the subject itself affords; and sometimes, when they comprehend neither, to discourse what is alleged for either." and having said in his book concerning the use of speech, that we ought no more to use the force of reason than of arms for such things as are not fitting, he subjoins this: "for they are to be employed for the finding out of truths and for the alliance of them, and not for the contrary, though many men do it." by "many" perhaps he means those who withhold their assent. but these teachers, understanding neither, dispute on both sides, believing that, if anything is comprehensible, thus only or chiefly does truth afford a comprehension of itself. but you, who accuse them, and do yourself write contrary to those things which you understood concerning custom, and exhort others under your authority to do the same, confess that you wantonly use the faculty of disputing, out of vain ambition, even on useless and hurtful things. they say, that a good deed is the command, and sin the prohibition of the law; and therefore that the law forbids the wicked many things, but commands them nothing, because they cannot do a good deed. but who is ignorant that he who cannot do a good deed cannot also sin? therefore they make the law to contradict itself, commanding men those things which they cannot perform, and forbidding them those things from which they cannot abstain. for a man who cannot be temperate cannot but act intemperately; and he who cannot be wise cannot but act foolishly. and they themselves affirm, that those who forbid say one thing, forbid another and command another. for he who says "thou shalt not steal" at the same time that he says these words, "thou shalt not steal, forbids also to steal and directs not to steal. the law therefor bids the wicked nothing, unless it also commands them something. and they say, that the physician bids his disciple to cut and cauterize, omitting to add these words, 'seasonably and moderately'; and the musician commands his scholar to play on the harp and sing, omitting 'tunably' and 'keeping time'." wherefore also they punish those who do these things unskilfully and faultily; for that they were commanded to do them well, and they have done them ill. if therefore a wise man commands his servant to say or do something, and punishes him for doing it unseasonably or not as he ought, is it not manifest that he commanded him to do a good action and not an indifferent one? but if wise men command wicked ones indifferent things, what hinders but the commands of the law may be also such? moreover, the impulse (called [greek omitted]) is, according to him, the reason of a man commanding him to do something, as he has written in his book of the law. is not therefore also the aversion (called [greek omitted]) a prohibiting reason, and a disinclination, a disinclination agreeable to reason? caution therefore is also reason prohibiting a w cautious is proper only to the wise, and not to the wicked. if, then, the reason of a wise man is one thing and the law another, wise men have caution contrary to the law; but if the law is nothing else but the reason of a wise man, the law is found to forbid wise men the doing of those things of which they are cautious. chrysippus says, that nothing is profitable to the wicked, that the wicked have neither use nor need of anything. having said this in his first book of good deeds, he says again, that both commodiousness and grace pertain to mean or indifferent things, none of which according to them, is profitable. in the same place he affirms, that there is nothing proper, nothing convenient for a vicious man, in these words: "on the same principle we declare that there is nothing foreign or strange to the good man, and nothing proper or rightfully belonging to the bad man, since the one is good and the other bad." why, then, does he break our heads, writing particularly in every one of his books, as well natural as moral, that as soon as we are born we are appropriated to ourselves, our parts, and our offspring? and why in his first book of justice does he say that the very brutes, proportionably to the necessity of their young, are appropriated to them, except fishes, whose young are nourished by themselves? for neither have they sense who have nothing sensible, nor they appropriation who have nothing proper; for appropriation seems to be the sense and perception of what is proper. and this opinion is consequent to their principal ones. it is moreover manifest that chrysippus, though he has also written many things to the contrary, lays this for a position, that there is not any vice greater or any sin more grievous than another, nor any virtue more excellent or any good deed better than another; so that he says in his third book of nature: "as it well beseems jupiter to glory in himself and his life, to magnify himself, and (if we may so say) to bear up his head, have an high conceit of himself, and speak big, for that he leads a life worthy of lofty speech; so the same things do not misbeseem all good men, since they are in nothing exceeded by jupiter." and yet himself, in his third book of justice, says, that they who make pleasure the end destroy justice, but they who say it is only a good do not destroy it. these are his very words: "for perhaps, if we leave this to pleasure, that it is a good but not the end, and that honesty is one of those things which are eligible for themselves, we may preserve justice, making the honest and the just a greater good than pleasure." but if that only is good which is honest, he who affirms pleasure to be a good is in an error, but he errs less than he who makes it also the end; for the one destroys justice, the other preserves it; and by the one human society is overthrown, but the other leaves a place to goodness and humanity. now i let pass his saying farther in his book concerning jupiter, that the virtues increase and go on, lest i may seem to catch at words; though chrysippus is indeed in this kind very sharp upon plato and others. but when he forbids the praising of everything that is done according to virtue, he shows that there is some difference between good deeds. now he says thus in his book concerning jupiter: "for since each virtue has its own proper effects, there are some of these that are to be praised more highly than others; for he would show himself to be very frigid, that should undertake to praise and extol any man for holding out the finger stoutly, for abstaining continently from an old woman ready to drop into the grave, and patiently hearing it said that three are not exactly four." what he says in his third book of the gods is not unlike to this: "for i moreover think that the praises of such things as to abstain from an old woman who has one foot in the grave, and to endure the sting of a fly, though proceeding from virtue, would be very impertinent." what other reprehender of his doctrines does this man then expect? for if he who praises such things is frigid, he who asserts every one of them to be a great--nay, a very great good deed--is much more frigid. for if to endure a fly is equal to being valiant, and to abstain from an old woman now at the edge of the grave is equal to being temperate, there is, i think, no difference whether a virtuous man is prized for these or for those. moreover, in his second book of friendship, teaching that friendships are not for every fault to be dissolved, he has these very expressions: "for it is meet that some faults should be wholly passed by, others lightly reprehended, others more severely, and others deemed worthy a total dissolution of friendship." and which is more, he says in the same book, that we will converse with some more and some less, so that some shall be more and some less friends; and this diversity extending very far, some are worthy of such an amity, others of a greater; and these will deserve to be so far trusted, those not so far, and the like. for what else has he done in these places, but shown the great diversity there is between these things? moreover, in his book concerning honesty, to demonstrate that only to be good which is honest, he uses these words: "what is good is eligible; what is eligible is acceptable; what is acceptable is laudable; and what is laudable is honest." and again: "what is good is joyous; what is joyous is venerable; what is venerable is honest." but these speeches are repugnant to himself; for either all good is commendable, and then the abstaining chastely from an old woman is also commendable; or all good is neither venerable nor joyous, and his reasoning falls to the ground. for how can it possibly be frigid in others to praise any for such things, and not ridiculous for him to rejoice and glory in them? such indeed he frequently is; but in his disputations against others he takes not the least care of speaking things contrary and dissonant to himself. for in his books of exhorting, reprehending plato, who said, that to him who has neither learned nor knows how to live it is profitable not to live, he speaks in this manner: "for this speech is both repugnant to itself, and not at all conclusive. for first insinuating that it is best for us not to live, and in a sort counselling us to die, he will excite us rather to anything else than to be philosophers; for neither can he who does not live philosophize, nor he who shall live long wickedly and ignorantly become wise." and going on, he says that it is convenient for the wicked also to continue in life. and afterwards thus, word for word: "first, as virtue, barely taken, has nothing towards our living, so neither has vice anything to oblige us to depart." nor is it necessary to turn over other books, that we may show chrysippus's contradictoriness to himself; but in these same, he sometimes with commendation brings forth this saying of antisthenes, that either understanding or a halter is to be provided, as also that of tyrtaeus, come nigh the bounds of virtue or of death. now what else will this show, but that to wicked men and fools not to live is more profitable than to live? and sometimes correcting theognis, he says, that the poet should not have written, from poverty to fly;-but rather thus, from wickedness to fly, into the deep throw thyself, cyrnus, or from rocks so steep. (see "theognis," vs. 175.) what therefore else does he seem to do, but to set down himself those things and doctrines which, when others write them, he expunges; condemning, indeed, plato for showing that not to live is better than to live viciously and ignorantly; and yet advising theognis to let a man break his neck or throw himself into the sea, that he may avoid vice? for having praised antisthenes for directing fools to an halter, he again blames him, saying that vice has nothing that should oblige us to depart out of life. moreover, in his books against the same plato, concerning justice, he immediately at the very beginning leaps into a discourse touching the gods, and says, that cephalus did not rightly avert men from injustice by the fear of the gods, and that his teaching is easily refuted, and that it affords to the contrary many arguments and probabilities impugning the discourse concerning divine punishments, as nothing differing from the tales of acco and alphito (or raw-head and bloody-bones), with which women are wont to frighten little children from their unlucky pranks. having thus traduced plato, he in other places again praises him, and often alleges this saying of euripides:- howe'er you may deride it, there's a jove, with other gods, who sees men's ills above. and likewise, in his first book of justice citing these verses of hesiod, then jove from heaven punishments did send, and plague and famine brought them to their end, ("works and days," 242.) he says, the gods do these things, that the wicked being punished, others admonished by these examples may less dare to attempt the doing of such things. again, in his book of justice, subjoining, that it is possible for those who make pleasure a good but not the end to preserve also justice, he said in express terms: "for perhaps if we leave this to pleasure, that it is a good but not the end, and that honesty is one of those things which are eligible for themselves, we may preserve justice, making the honest and the just a greater good than pleasure." so much he says in this place concerning pleasure. but in his book against plato, accus temperance, and all the other virtues will be taken away, if we make pleasure, health, or anything else which is not honest, to be a good. what therefore is to be said for plato, we have elsewhere written against him. but here his contradicting himself is manifest, when he says in one place, that if a man supposes that with honesty pleasure also is a good, justice is preserved, and in another, accuses those who make anything besides honesty to be a good of taking away all the virtues. but that he may not leave any means of making an apology for his contradictions, writing against aristotle concerning justice, he affirms him not to have spoken rightly when he said, that pleasure being made the end, justice is taken away, and together with justice, every one also of the other virtues. for justice (he says) will indeed be taken away; but there is nothing to hinder the other virtues from remaining and being, though not eligible for themselves, yet good and virtues. then he reckons up every one of them by name. but it will be better to set down his own words. "for pleasure," says he, "appearing according to this discourse to be made the end, yet all this seems not to me to be contained in it. wherefore we must say, that neither any of the virtues is eligible nor any of the vices to be avoided for itself, but that all these things are to be referred to the proposed scope. yet nothing, according to their opinion, will hinder but that fortitude, prudence, continence, and patience may be good, and their contraries to be avoided." has there ever then been any man more peevish in his disputes than he, who has blamed two of the principal philosophers, the one for taking away all virtue, by not making that only to be good which is honest, and the other for not thinking all the virtues except justice to be preserved, though pleasure is made the end? for it is a wonderful licentiousness that, discoursing of the same matters, he should when accusing plato take away again those very things which himself sets down when reprehending aristotle. moreover, in his demonstrations concerning justice, he says expressly, that every good deed is both a lawful action and a just operation; but that everything which is done according to continence, patience, prudence, or fortitude is a good deed, and therefore also a just operation. why, then, does he not also leave justice to them to whom he leaves prudence, fortitude, and continence; since whatever they do well according to the said virtue, they do also justly? moreover, plato having said, that injustice, as being the corruption and sedition of the soul, loses not its power even in those who have it within them, but sets the wicked man against himself, and molests and disturbs him; chrysippus, blaming this, affirms that it is absurdly said, "a man injures himself"; for that injustice is to another, and not to one's self. but forgetting this, he again says, in his demonstrations concerning justice, that the unjust man is injured by himself and injures himself when he injures another, becoming to himself the cause of transgressing, and undeservedly hurting himself. in his books indeed against plato, contending that we cannot talk of injustice against one's self, but as concerns another, he has these words: "for men cannot be unjust by themselves; injustice requires several on different sides, speaking contrary one unto another and the injustice must be taken in different ways. but no such thing extends to one alone, except inasmuch as he is affected towards his neighbor." but in his demonstrations he has such discourses as these, concerning the unjust man's being injurious also to himself: "the law forbids the being any way the author of transgression, and to act unjustly will be transgression. he therefore who is to himself the author of acting unjustly transgresses against himself. now he that transgresses against any one also injures him; therefore he who is injurious to any one whomsoever is injurious also to himself." again: "sin is a hurt, and every one who sins sins against himself; every one therefore who sins hurts himself undeservedly, and if so, is also unjust to himself." and farther thus: "he who is hurt by another hurts himself, and that undeservedly. now that is to be unjust. every one therefore that is injured, by whomsoever it is, is unjust also to himself." he says, that the doctrine concerning good and evil which himself introduces and approves is most agreeable to life, and does most of all reach the inbred prenotions; for this he has affirmed in his third book of exhortations. but in his first book he says, that this doctrine takes a man off from all other things, as being nothing to us, nor co-operating anything towards felicity. see, now, how consonant he is to himself, when he asserts a doctrine which takes us off from life, health, indolence, and integrity of the senses, and says that those things we beg of the gods are nothing to us, though most agreeable to life and to the common presumptions. but that there may be no denial of his speaking contradictions, in his third book of justice he has said thus: "wherefore also, from the excellence of their greatness and beauty, we seem to speak things like to fictions, and not according to man or human nature." is it then possible that any one can more plainly confess his speaking things contrary to himself than this man does, who affirms those things which (he says) for their excellency seem to be fictions and to be spoken above man and human nature, to be agreeable to life, and most of all to reach the inbred prenotions? in every one of his natural and ethical books, he asserts vice to be the very essence of unhappiness; writing and contending that to live viciously is the same thing as to live unhappily. but in his third book of nature, having said that it is profitable for a fool to live rather than to die, though he is never to become wise, he subjoins: "for such is the nature of good things among mortals, that evil things are in some sort chosen before indifferent ones." i let pass therefore, that having elsewhere said that nothing is profitable to fools, he here says that to live foolishly is profitable to them. now those things being by them called indifferent which are neither bad nor good, when he says that bad things precede them, he says nothing else but that evil things precede those that are not evil, and that to be unhappy is more profitable than not to be unhappy; and if so, he esteems not to be unhappy to be more unprofitable--and if more unprofitable, more hurtful--than to be unhappy. desiring therefore to mitigate this absurdity, he adds concerning evils: "but it is not these evils that have precedence, but reason; with which it is more convenient to live, though we shall be fools." first therefore he says that vice and things participating of vice are evil, and that nothing else is so. now vice is something reasonable, or rather depraved reason. for those therefore who are fools to live with reason, is nothing else but to live with vice. thence to live being fools is to live being unhappy. in what then is this to be preferred to indifferent things? for he surely will not say that with regard to happiness unhappiness is to be preferred. but neither, say they, does chrysippus altogether think that the remaining in life is to be reckoned amongst good things, or the going out of it amongst bad; but both of them amongst indifferent ones, according to nature. wherefore also it sometimes becomes meet for the happy to make themselves away, and again for the unhappy to continue in life. now what greater repugnance can there be than this in the choice and avoiding of things, if it is convenient for those who are in the highest degree happy to forsake those good things that are present, for the want of some one indifferent thing? and yet they esteem none of the indifferent things either desirable or to be avoided; but only good desirable, and only evil to be avoided. so that it comes to pass, according to them, that the reasoning about actions regards neither things desirable nor things refusable; but that aiming at other things, which they neither shun nor choose, they make life and death to depend on these. chrysippus confesses that good things are totally different from bad; and it must of necessity be so, if these make them with whom they are present miserable to the very utmost point, and those render their possessors in the highest degree happy. now he says, that good and evil things are sensible, writing thus in his first book of the end: "that good and evil things are perceptible by sense, we are by these reasons forced to say; for not only the passions, with their species, as sorrow, fear, and such others, are sensible; but we may also have a sense of theft, adultery, and the like, and generally, of folly, cowardice, and other vices not a few; and again, not only of joy, beneficence, and many other dependences on good deeds, but also of prudence, fortitude, and the other virtues." let us pass by the other absurdities of these things; but that they are repugnant to those things which are delivered by him concerning "the wise man that knows nothing of his being so," who does not confess? for good, when present, being sensible and having a great difference from evil, is it not most absurd, that he who is of bad become good should be ignorant of it, and not perceive virtue when present, but think that vice is still within him? for either none who has all virtues can be ignorant and doubt of his having them; or the difference of virtue from vice, of happiness from misery, and of a most honest life from a most shameful one, is little and altogether difficult to be discerned, if he who has taken the one in exchange for the other does not perceive it. he has written one volume of lives divided into four books; in the fourth of these he says, that a wise man meddles with no business but his own, and is employed about his own affairs. his words are these: "for i am of opinion, that a prudent man shuns affairs, meddles little, and at the same time minds his own occasions; civil persons being both minders of their own affairs and meddlers with little else." he has said almost the same in his book of things eligible for themselves, in these very words: "for indeed a quiet life seems to have in it a certain security and freedom from danger, though there are not very many who can comprehend it." it is manifest that he does not much dissent from epicurus, who takes away providence that he may leave god in repose. but the same chrysippus in his first book of lives says, that a wise man willingly takes upon him a kingdom, making his profit by it; and if he cannot reign himself, will dwell with a king, and go to the wars with a king like hydanthyrsus the scythian or leucon the pontic. but i will here also set down his very discourse, that we may see whether, as from the treble and the base strings there arises a symphony in music, so the life of a man who chooses quietness and meddling with little accords with him who, upon any necessity, rides along with the scythians and manages the affairs of the tyrants in the bosphorus: "for that a wise man will both go to the wars and live with potentates, we will again consider this hereafter; some indeed upon the like arguments not so much as suspecting this, and we for semblable reasons admitting it." and a little after: "not only with those who have proceeded well, and are become proficients in discipline and good manners, as with leucon and hydanthyrsus." some there are who blame callisthenes for sailing to alexander in hopes to obtain the rebuilding of olynthus, as aristotle had procured that of stagira; and commend ephorus, xenocrates, and menedemus, who rejected alexander's solicitation. but chrysippus thrusts his wise man headforwards for the sake of gain, as far as panticapaeum and the desert of the scythians. and that he does this for the sake of profit and gain, he has showed before, supposing three ways of gaining most suitable for a wise man,--the first by a kingdom, the second by his friends, and the third, besides these, by teaching philosophy. and yet he frequently even tires us with his praises of this saying:- what need have men of more than these two things? and in his books of nature he says, that a wise man, if he has lost the greatest wealth imaginable, seems to have lost but a single groat. but having there thus elevated and puffed him up, he again here throws him down to mercenariness and sophistry; nay, to asking money and even to receiving it beforehand, sometimes at the very entrance of his scholar, and otherwhiles after some time past. the last, he says indeed, is the more polite, but to receive beforehand the more sure; delay allowing of injuries. now he says thus: "all who are well advised do not require their salary in the same manner, but differently; a multitude of them, as opportunity offers, not promising to make their scholars good men, and that within a year, but to do this, as far as in them lies, within a time agreed on." and again going on, he says: "but he will know his opportunity, whether he ought to receive his recompense presently at the very entrance (as many have done), or to give them time, this manner being more liable to injuries, but withal, seeming the more courteous." and how is the wise man a contemner of wealth, who upon a contract delivers virtue for money, and if he has not delivered it, yet requires his reward, as having done what is in him? or how is he above being endamaged, when he is so cautious lest he be wronged of his recompense? for no man is wronged who is not endamaged. therefore, though he has elsewhere asserted that a wise man cannot be injured, he here says, that this manner of dealing is liable to injury. in his book of a commonweal he says, that his citizens will neither act nor prepare anything for the sake of pleasure, and praises euripides for having uttered this sentence:- what need have men of more than these two things, the fruits of ceres, and thirst-quenching springs? and yet a little after this, going on, he commends diogenes, who forced his nature to pass from himself in public, and said to those that were present: i wish i could in the same manner drive hunger also out of my belly. what reason then is there to praise in the same books him who rejects all pleasure, and withal, him who for the sake of pleasure does such things, and proceeds to such a degree of filthiness? moreover, having in his book of nature written, that nature has produced many creatures for the sake of beauty, delighting in pulchritude and pleasing herself with variety, and having added a most absurd expression, that the peacock was made for the sake of his tail and for the beauty of it; he has, in his treatise of a commonweal, sharply reprehended those who bred peacocks and nightingales, as if he were making laws contrary to the lawgiver of the world, and deriding nature for pleasing herself in the beauty of animals to which a wise man would not give a place in his city. for how can it but be absurd to blame those who nourish these creatures, if he commends providence which created them? in his fifth book of nature, having said, that bugs profitably awaken us out of our sleep, that mice make us cautious not to lay up everything negligently, and that it is probable that nature, rejoicing in variety, takes delight in the production of fair creatures, he adds these words: "the evidence of this is chiefly shown in the peacock's tail; for here she manifests that this animal was made for the sake of his tail, and not the contrary; so, the male being made, the female follows." in his book of a commonweal, having said that we are ready to paint even dunghills, a little after he adds, that some beautify their cornfields with vines climbing up trees, and myrtles set in rows, and keep peacocks, doves, and partridges, that they may hear them cry and coo, and nightingales. now i would gladly ask him, what he thinks of bees and honey? for it was of consequence, that he who said bugs were created profitably should also say that bees were created unprofitably. but if he allows these a place in his city, why does he drive away his citizens from things that are pleasing and delight the ear? to be brief,--as he would be very absurd who should blame the guests for eating sweetmeats and other delicacies and drinking of wine, and at the same time commend him who invited them and prepared such things for them; so he that praises providence, which has afforded fishes, birds, honey, and wine, and at the same time finds fault with those who reject not these things, nor content themselves with the fruits of ceres and thirst-quenching springs, which are present and sufficient to nourish us, seems to make no scruple of speaking things contradictory to himself. moreover, having said in his book of exhortations, that the having carnal commerce with our mothers, daughters, or sisters, the eating forbidden food, and the going from a woman's bed or a dead carcass to the temple, have been without reason blamed, he affirms, that we ought for these things to have a regard to the brute beasts, and from what is done by them conclude that none of these is absurd or contrary to nature; for that the comparisons of other animals are fitly made for this purpose, to show that neither their coupling, bringing-forth, nor dying in the temples pollutes the divinity. yet he again in his fifth book of nature says, that hesiod rightly forbids urinating into rivers and fountains, and that we should rather abstain from doing this against any altar, or statue of the gods; and that it is not to be admitted for an argument, that dogs, asses, and young children do it, who have no discretion or consideration of such things. it is therefore absurd to say in one place, that the savage example of irrational animals is fit to be considered, and in another, that it is unreasonable to allege it. to give a solution to the inclinations, when a man seems to be necessitated by exterior causes, some philosophers place in the principal faculty of the soul a certain adventitious motion, which is chiefly manifested in things differing in no way from one another. for when, with two things altogether alike and of equal importance, there is a necessity to choose the one, there being no cause inclining to either, for that neither of them differs from the other, this adventitious power of the soul, seizing on its inclination, determines the doubt. chrysippus, discoursing against these men, as offering violence to nature by imagining an effect without a cause, in many places alleges the die and the balance, and several other things, which cannot fall or incline either one way or the other without some cause or difference, either wholly within them or coming to them from without; for that what is causeless (he says) is wholly insubsistent, as also what is fortuitous; and in those motions devised by some and called adventitious, there occur certain obscure causes, which, being concealed from us, move our inclinations to one side or other. these are some of those things which are most evidently known to have been frequently said by him; but what he has said contrary to this, not lying so exposed to every one's sight, i will set down in his own words. for in his book of judging, having supposed two running for a wager to have exactly finished their race together, he examines what is fit for the judge in this case to do. "whether," says he, "may the judge give the palm to which of them he will, since they both happen to be so familiar to him, that he would in some sort appear to bestow on them somewhat of his own? or rather, since the palm is common to both, may it be, as if lots had been cast, given to either, according to the inclination he chances to have? i say the inclination he chances to have, as when two groats, every way else alike, being presented to us, we incline to one of them and take it." and in his sixth book of duties, having said that there are some things not worthy of much study or attention, he thinks we ought, as if we had cast lots, to commit the choice of those things to the casual inclination of the mind: "as if," says he, "of those who try the same two drams in a certain time, some should approve this and others that, and there being no more cause for the taking of one than the other, we should leave off making any farther investigation and take that which chances to come first; thus casting the lot (as it were) according to some uncertain principle, and being in danger of choosing the worse of them." for in these passages, the casting of lots and the casual inclining of the mind, which is without any cause, introduce the choice of indifferent things. in his third book of dialectics, having said that plato, aristotle, and those who came after them, even to polemon and straton, but especially socrates, diligently studied dialectics, and having cried out that one would even choose to err with such and so great men as these, he brings in these words: "for if they had spoken of these things cursorily, one might perhaps have cavilled at this place; but having treated of dialectic skill as one of the greatest and most necessary faculties, it is not probable they should have been so much mistaken, having been such in all the parts of philosophy as we esteem them." why, then (might some one say to him), do you never cease to oppose and argue against such and so great men, as if you thought them to err in the principal and greatest matters? for it is not probable that they writ seriously of dialectics, and only transitorily and in sport of the beginning, end, gods, and justice, in which you affirm their discourse to be blind and contradictory to itself, and to have a thousand other faults. in one place he says, that the vice called [greek omitted], or the rejoicing at other men's harms, has no being; since no good man ever rejoiced at another's evils. but in his second book of good, having declared envy to be a sorrow at other men's good,--to wit, in such as desire the depression of their neighbors that themselves may excel, he joins to it this rejoicing at other men's harms, saying thus: "to this is contiguous the rejoicing at other men's harms, in such as for like causes desire to have their neighbors low; but in those that are turned according to other natural motions, is engendered mercy." for he manifestly admits the joy at other men's harms to be subsistent, as well as envy and mercy; though in other places he affirms it to have no subsistence; as he does also the hatred of wickedness, and the desire of dishonest gain. having in many places said, that those who have a long time been happy are nothing more so, but equally and in like manner with those who have but a moment been partakers of felicity, he has again in many other places affirmed, that it is not fit to stretch out so much as a finger for the obtaining momentary prudence, which flies away like a flash of lightning. it will be sufficient to set down what is to this purpose written by him in his sixth book of moral questions. for having said, that neither does every good thing equally cause joy, nor every good deed the like glorying, he subjoins these words: "for if a man should have wisdom only for a moment of time or the final minute of life, he ought not so much as to stretch out his finger for such a shortlived prudence." and yet men are neither more happy for being longer so, nor is eternal felicity more eligible than that which lasts but a moment. if he had indeed held prudence to be a good, producing felicity, as epicurus thought, one should have blamed only the absurdity and the paradoxicalness of this opinion; but since prudence of itself is not another thing differing from felicity, but felicity itself, how is it not a contradiction to say, that momentary happiness is equally desirable with eternal, and yet that momentary happiness is nothing worth? chrysippus also says, that the virtues follow one another, and that not only he who has one has all, but also that he who acts according to any one of them acts according to them all; and he affirms, that there is not any man perfect who is not possessed of all the virtues, nor any action perfect to the doing of which all the virtues do not concur. but yet in his sixth book of moral questions he says, that a good man does not always act valiantly, nor a vicious man always fearfully; for certain objects being presented to the fancies, the one must persist in his judgments, and the other depart from them; and he says that it is not probable a wicked man should be always indulging his lust. if then to act valiantly is the same thing as to use fortitude; and to act timorously as to yield to fear, they cannot but speak contradictions who say, that he who is possessed of either virtue or vice acts at she same time according to all the virtues or all the vices, and yet that a valiant man does not always act valiantly nor a vicious man timorously. he defines rhetoric to be an art concerning the ornament and the ordering of a discourse that is pronounced. and farther in his first book he has written thus: "and i am of opinion not only that a regard ought to be had to a liberal and simple adorning of words, but also that care is to be taken for proper delivery, as regards the right elevation of the voice and the compositions of the countenance and hands." yet he, who is in this place so curious and exact, again in the same book, speaking of the collision of the vowels, says: "we ought not only to let these things pass, minding somewhat that is better, but also to neglect certain obscurities and defects, nay, solecisms also, of which others, and those not a few, would be ashamed." certainly, in one place to allow those who would speak eloquently so carefully to dispose their speech as even to observe a decorum in the very composition of their mouth and hands, and in another place to forbid the taking care of defects and inelegancies, and the being ashamed even of committing solecisms, is the property of a man who little cares what he says, but rashly utters whatever comes first into his mouth. moreover, in his natural positions having warned us not to trouble ourselves but to be at quiet about such things as require experience and scientific investigation, he says: "let us not think after the same manner with plato, that liquid nourishment is conveyed to the lungs, and dry to the stomach; nor let us embrace other errors like to these." now it is my opinion, that to reprehend others, and then not to keep one's self from falling into those things which one has reprehended, is the greatest of contradictions and shamefullest of errors. but he says, that the connections made by ten axioms amount to above a million in number, having neither searched diligently into it by himself nor attained to the truth by men experienced in it. yet plato had to testify for him the most renowned of the physicians, hippocrates, philistion, and dioxippus the disciple of hippocrates; and of the poets, euripides, aleaeus, eupolis, and eratosthenes, who all say that the drink passes through the lungs. but all the arithmeticians refute chrysippus, amongst whom also is hipparchus, demonstrating that the error of his computation is very great; since the affirmative makes of the ten axioms one hundred and three thousand forty and nine connections, and the negative three hundred and ten thousand nine hundred fifty and two. some of the ancients have said, that the same befell zeno which befalls him who has sour wine which he can sell neither for vinegar nor wine; for his "things preferable," as he called them, cannot be disposed of, either as good or as indifferent. but chrysippus has made the matter yet far more intricate; for he sometimes says, that they are mad who make no account of riches, health, freedom from pain, and integrity of the body, nor take any care to attain them; and having cited that sentence of hesiod, work hard, o god-born perses, ("works and days," 299.) he cries out, that it would be a madness to advise the contrary and say, work not, o god-born perses. and in his book of lives he affirms, that a wise man will for the sake of gain live with kings, and teach for money, receiving from some of his scholars his reward beforehand, and making contract with others of them; and in his seventh book of duties he says, that he will not scruple to turn his heels thrice over his head, if for so doing he may have a talent. in his first book of good things, he yields and grants to those that desire it to call these preferable things good and their contraries evil, in these very words: "any one who likes, according to these permutations, may call one thing good and another evil, if he has a regard to the things themselves, not wandering elsewhere, not failing in the understanding of the thing signified, and in the rest accommodating himself to custom in the denomination." having thus in this place set his things preferable so near to good, and mixed them therewith, he again says, that none of these things belongs at all to us, but that reason withdraws and averts us from all such things; for he has written thus in his first book of exhortations. and in his third book of nature he says, that some esteem those happy who reign and are rich, which is all one as if those should be reputed happy who make water in golden chamber-pots and wear golden fringes; but to a good man the losing of his whole estate is but as the losing of one groat, and the being sick no more than if he had stumbled. wherefore he has not filled virtue only, but providence also, with these contradictions. for virtue would seem to the utmost degree sordid and foolish, if it should busy itself about such matters, and enjoin a wise man for their sake to sail to bosphorus or tumble with his heels over his head. and jupiter would be very ridiculous to be styled ctesius, epicarpius, and charitodotes, because forsooth he gives the wicked golden chamber-pots and golden fringes, and the good such things as are hardly worth a groat, when through jupiter's providence they become rich. and yet much more ridiculous is apollo, if he sits to give oracles concerning golden fringes and chamber-pots and the recovering of a stumble. but they make this repugnancy yet more evident by their demonstration. for they say, that what may be used both well and ill, the same is neither good nor bad; but fools make an ill use of riches, health, and strength of body; therefore none of these is good. if therefore god gives not virtue to men,--but honesty is eligible of itself,--and yet bestows on them riches and health without virtue, he confers them on those who can use them not well but ill, that is hurtfully, shamefully, and perniciously. now, if the gods can bestow virtue and do not, they are not good; but if they cannot make men good, neither can they help them, for outside of virtue nothing is good and advantageous. now to judge those who are otherwise made good according to virtue and strength... is nothing to the purpose, for good men also judge the gods according to virtue and strength; so that they do no more aid men than they are aided by them. now chrysippus neither professes himself nor any one of his disciples and teachers to be virtuous. what then do they think of others, but those things which they say,--that they are all mad fools, impious, transgressors of laws, and in the most degree of misery and unhappiness? and yet they say that our affairs, though we act thus miserably, are governed by the providence of the gods. now if the gods, changing their minds, should desire to hurt, afflict, overthrow, and quite crush us, they could not put us in a worse condition than we already are; as chrysippus demonstrates that life can admit only one degree either of misery or of unhappiness; so that if it had a voice, it would pronounce these words of hercules: i am so full of miseries, there is no place to stow them in. (euripides, "hercules furens," 1245.) now who can imagine any assertions more repugnant to one another than chat of chrysippus concerning the gods and that concerning men; when he says, that the gods do in the best manner possible provide for men, and yet men are in the worst condition imaginable? some of the pythagoreans blame him for having in his book of justice written concerning cocks, that they are usefully procreated, because they awaken us from our sleep, hunt out scorpions, and animate us to battle, breeding in us a certain emulation to show courage; and yet that we must eat them, lest the number of chickens should be greater than were expedient. but he so derides those who blame him for this, that he has written thus concerning jupiter the saviour and creator, the father of justice, equity, and peace, in his third book of the gods: "as cities overcharged with too great a number of citizens send forth colonies into other places and make war upon some, so does god give the beginnings of corruption." and he brings in euripides for a witness, with others who say that the trojan war was caused by the gods, to exhaust the multitude of men. but letting pass their other absurdities (for our design is not to inquire what they have said amiss, but only what they have said dissonantly to themselves), consider how he always attributes to the gods specious and kind appellations, but at the same time cruel, barbarous, and galatian deeds. for those so great slaughters and earnages, as were the productions of the trojan war and again of the persian and peloponnesian, were no way like to colonies unless these men know of some cities built in hell and under the earth. but chrysippus makes god like to deiotarus, the galatian king, who having many sons, and being desirous to leave his kingdom and house to one of them, killed all the rest; as he that cuts and prunes away all the other branches from the vine, that one which he leaves remaining may grow strong and great. and yet the vine-dresser does this, the sprigs being slender and weak; and we, to favor a bitch, take from her many of her new-born puppies, whilst they are yet blind. but jupiter, having not only suffered and seen men to grow up, but having also both created and increased them, plagues them afterwards, devising occasions of their destruction and corruption; whereas he should rather not have given them any causes and beginnings of generation. however, this is but a small matter; but that which follows is greater. for there is no war amongst men without vice. but sometimes the love of pleasure, sometimes the love of money, and sometimes the love of glory and rule is the cause of it. if therefore god is the author of wars, he must be also of sins, provoking and perverting men. and yet himself says in his treatise of judgment and his second book of the gods, that it is no way rational to say that the divinity is in any respect the cause of dishonesty. for as the law can in no way be the cause of transgression, so neither can the gods of being impious; therefore neither is it rational that they should be the causes of anything that is filthy. what therefore can be more filthy to men than the mutual killing of one another?--to which chrysippus says that god gives beginnings. but some one perhaps will say, that he elsewhere praises euripides for saying, if gods do aught dishonest, they're no gods; and again, 'tis a most easy thing t' accuse the gods; (from the "bellerophontes" of euripides, frag. 294; and the "archelaus," frag. 256.) as if we were now doing anything else than setting down such words and sentences of his as are repugnant to one another. yet that very thing which is now praised may be objected, not once or twice or thrice, but even ten thousand times, against chrysippus:- 'tis a most easy thing t' accuse the gods. for first having in his book of nature compared the eternity of motion to a drink made of divers species confusedly mixed together, turning and jumbling the things that are made, some this way, others that way, he goes on thus: "now the administration of the universe proceeding in this manner, it is of necessity we should be in the condition we are, whether contrary to our own nature we are sick or maimed, or whether we are grammarians or musicians." and again a little after, "according to this reason we shall say the like of our virtue and vice, and generally of arts or the ignorance of arts, as i have said." and a little after, taking away all ambiguity, he says: "for no particular thing, not even the least, can be otherwise than according to common nature and its reason." but that common nature and the common reason of nature are with him fate and providence and jupiter, is not unknown even to the antipodes. for these things are everywhere inculcated in the stoic system; and chrysippus affirms that homer said very well, jove's purposes were ripening, ("iliad," i. 5.) having respect to fate and the nature of the universe, according to which everything is governed. how then do these agree, both that god is no way the cause of any dishonest thing, and again, that not even the least thing imaginable can be otherwise done than according to common nature and its reason? for amongst all things that are done, there must of necessity be also evil things attributed to the gods. and though epicurus indeed turns himself every way, and studies artifices, devising how to deliver and set loose our voluntary free will from this eternal motion, that he may not leave vice irreprehensible; yet chrysippus gives vice a most absolute liberty, as being done not only of necessity or according to fate, but also according to the reason of god and best nature. and these things are yet farther seen in what he says afterwards, being thus word for word: "for common nature extending to all things, it will be of necessity that everything, howsoever done in the whole or in any one soever of its parts, must be done according to this common nature and its reason, proceeding on regularly without any impediment. for there is nothing without that can hinder the administration, nor is there any of the parts that can be moved or habituated otherwise than according to common nature." what, then, are these habits and motions of the parts? it is manifest, that the habits are vices and diseases, covetousness, luxury, ambition, cowardice, injustice; and that the motions are adulteries, thefts, treasons, murders, parricides. of these chrysippus thinks, that no one, either little or great, is contrary to the reason of jupiter, or to his law, justice, and providence; so neither is the transgressing of the law done against the law, nor the acting unjustly against justice, nor the committing of sin against providence. and yet he says, that god punishes vice, and does many things for the chastising of the wicked. and in his second book of the gods he says, that many adversities sometimes befall the good, not as they do the wicked, for punishment, but according to another dispensation, as it is in cities. and again in these words: "first we are to understand of evils in like manner as has been said before: then that these things are distributed according to the reason of jupiter, whether for punishment, or according to some other dispensation, having in some sort respect to the universe." this therefore is indeed severe, that wickedness is both done and punished according to the reason of jupiter. but he aggravates this contradiction in his second book of nature, writing thus: "vice in reference to grievous accidents, has a certain reason of its own. for it is also in some sort according to the reason of nature, and, as i may so say, is not wholly useless in respect of the universe. for otherwise also there would not be any good." thus does he reprehend those that dispute indifferently on both sides, who, out of a desire to say something wholly singular and more exquisite concerning everything, affirms, that men do not unprofitably cut purses, calumniate, and play madmen, and that it is not unprofitable there should be unprofitable, hurtful, and unhappy persons. what manner of god then is jupiter,--i mean chrysippus's jupiter,--who punishes an act done neither willingly nor unprofitably? for vice is indeed, according to chrysippus's discourse, wholly reprehensible; but jupiter is to be blamed, whether he has made vice which is an unprofitable thing, or, having made it not unprofitable, punishes it. again, in his first book of justice, having spoken of the gods as resisting the injustices of some, he says: "but wholly to take away vice is neither possible nor expedient." whether it were not better that law-breaking, injustice, and folly should be taken away, is not the design of this present discourse to inquire. but he himself, as much as in him lies, by his philosophy taking away vice, which it is not expedient to take away, does something repugnant both to reason and god. besides this, saying that god resists some injustices, he again makes plain the impiety of sins. having often written that there is nothing reprehensible, nothing to be complained of in the world, all things being finished according to a most excellent nature, he again elsewhere leaves certain negligences to be reprehended, and those not concerning small or base matters. for having in his third book of substance related that some such things befall honest and good men, he says: "may it not be that some things are not regarded, as in great families some bran--yea, and some grains of corn also--are scattered, the generality being nevertheless well ordered; or maybe there are evil genii set over those things in which there are real and faulty negligence?" and he also affirms that there is much necessity intermixed. i let pass, how inconsiderate it is to compare such accidents befalling honest and good men, as were the condemnation of socrates, the burning of pythagoras, whilst he was yet living, by the cyloneans, the putting to death--and that with torture--of zeno by the tyrant demylus, and of antiphon by dionysius, with the letting of bran fall. but that there should be evil genii placed by providence over such charges,--how can it but be a reproach to god, as it would be to a king, to commit the administration of his provinces to evil and rash governors and captains, and suffer the best of his subjects to be despised and ill-treated by them? and furthermore, if there is much necessity mixed amongst affairs, then god has not power over them all, nor are they all administered according to his reason. he contends much against epicurus and those that take away providence from the conceptions we have of the gods, whom we esteem beneficial and gracious to men. and these things being frequently said by them, there is no necessity of setting down the words. yet all do not conceive the gods to be good and favorable to us. for see what the jews and syrians think of the gods; consider also with how much superstition the poets are filled. but there is not any one, in a manner to speak of, that imagines god to be corruptible or to have been born. and to omit all others, antipater the tarsian, in his book of the gods writes thus, word for word: "at the opening of our discourse we will briefly repeat the opinion we have concerning god. we understand therefore god to be an animal, blessed and incorruptible, and beneficial to men." and then expounding every one of these terms he says: "and indeed all men esteem the gods to be incorruptible." chrysippus therefore is, according to antipater, not one of "all men"; for he thinks none of the gods, except fire, to be incorruptible, but that they all equally were born and will die. these things are, in a manner, everywhere said by him. but i will set down his words out of his third book of the gods: "it is otherwise with the gods. for some of them are born and corruptible, but others not born. and to demonstrate these things from the beginning will be more fit for a treatise of nature. for the sun, the moon, and other gods who are of a like nature, were begotten; but jupiter is eternal." and again going on: "but the like will be said concerning dying and being born, both concerning the other gods and jupiter. for they indeed are corruptible, but his past incorruptible." with these i compare a few of the things said by antipater: "whosoever they are that take away from the gods beneficence, they affect in some part our conception of them; and according to the same reason they also do this, who think they participate of generation and corruption." if, then, he who esteems the gods corruptible is equally absurd with him who thinks them not to be provident and gracious to men, chrysippus is no less in an error than epicurus. for one of them deprives the gods of beneficence, the other of incorruptibility. ============ and moreover, chrysippus, in his third book of the gods treating of the other gods being nourished, says thus: "the other gods indeed use nourishment, being equally sustained by it; but jupiter and the world are maintained after another manner from those who are consumed and were engendered by fire." here indeed he declares, that all the other gods are nourished except the world and jupiter; but in his first book of providence he says: "jupiter increases till he has consumed all things into himself. for since death is the separation of the soul from the body, and the soul of the world is not indeed separated, but increases continually till it has consumed all matter into itself, it is not to be said that the world dies." who can therefore appear to speak things more contradictory to himself than he who says that the same god is now nourished and again not nourished? nor is there any need of gathering this by argument: for himself has plainly written in the same place: "but the world alone is said to be self-sufficient, because it alone has in itself all things it stands in need of, and is nourished and augmented of itself, the other parts being mutually changed into one another." he is then repugnant to himself, not only by declaring in one place that all the gods are nourished except the world and jupiter, and saying in another, that the world also is nourished; but much more, when he affirms that the world increases by nourishing itself. now the contrary had been much more probable, to wit, that the world alone does not increase, having its own destruction for its food; but that addition and increase are incident to the other gods, who are nourished from without, and the world is rather consumed into them, if so it is that the world feeds on itself, and they always receive something and are nourished from that. secondly, the conception of the gods contains in it felicity, blessedness, and self-perfection. wherefore also euripides is commanded for saying:- for god, if truly god, does nothing want, so all these speeches are the poets' cant. ("hercules furens," 1345.) but chrysippus in the places i have alleged says, that the world only is self-sufficient, because this alone has in itself all things it needs. what then follows from this, that the world alone is self-sufficient? that neither the sun, moon, nor any other of the gods is self-sufficient, and not being self-sufficient, they cannot be happy or blessed. he says, that the infant in the womb is nourished by nature, like a plant; but when it is brought forth, being cooled and hardened by the air, it changes its spirit and becomes an animal; whence the soul is not unfitly named psyche because of this refrigeration [greek omitted]. but again he esteems the soul the more subtile and fine spirit of nature, therein contradicting himself; for how can a subtile thing be made of a gross one, and be rarefied by refrigeration and condensation? and what is more, how does he, declaring an animal to be made by refrigeration, think the sun to be animated, which is of fire and made of an exhalation changed into fire? for he says in his third book of nature: "now the change of fire is such, that it is turned by the air into water; and the earth subsiding from this, the air exhales; the air being subtilized, the ether is produced round about it; and the stars are, with the sun, kindled from the sea." now what is more contrary to kindling than refrigeration, or to rarefaction than condensation? for the one makes water and earth of fire and air, and the other changes that which is moist and earthy into fire and air. but yet in one place he makes kindling, in another cooling, to be the beginning of animation. and he moreover says, that when the inflammation is throughout, it lives and is an animal, but being again extinct and thickened, it is turned into water and earth and corporeity. now in his first book of providence he says: "for the world, indeed, being wholly set on fire, is presently also the soul and guide of itself; but when it is changed into moisture, and has altered the soul remaining within it by some method into a body and soul, so as to consist of these two it exists then after another manner." here, forsooth, he plainly says, that the inanimate parts of the world are by inflammation turned into an animated thing, and that again by extinction the soul is relaxed and moistened, being changed into corporeity. he seems therefore very absurd, one while by refrigeration making animals of senseless things, and again, by the same changing the greatest part of the world's soul into senseless and inanimate things. but besides this, his discourse concerning the generation of the soul has a demonstration contrary to his own opinion; or he says, that the soul is generated when the infant is already brought forth, the spirit being changed by refrigeration, as by hardening. now for the soul's being engendered, and that after the birth, he chiefly uses this demonstration, that the children are for the most part in manners and inclinations like to their parents. now the repugnancy of these things is evident. for it is not possible that the soul, which is not generated till after the birth, should have its inclination before the birth; or it will fall out that the soul is like before it is generated; that is, it will be in likeness, and yet not be, because it is not yet generated. but if any one says that, the likeness being bred in the tempers of the bodies, the souls are changed when they are generated, he destroys the argument of the soul's being generated. for thus it may come to pass, that the soul, though not generated, may at its entrance into the body be changed by the mixture of likeness. he says sometimes, that the air is light and mounts upwards, and sometimes, that it is neither heavy nor light. for in his second book of motion he says, that the fire, being without gravity, ascends upwards, and the air like to that; the water approaching more to the earth, and the air to the fire. but in his physical arts he inclines to the other opinion, that the air of itself has neither gravity nor levity. he says that the air is by nature dark, and uses this as an argument of its being also the first cold; for that its darkness is opposite to the brightness, and its coldness to the heat of fire. moving this in his first book of natural questions, he again in his treatise of habits says, that habits are nothing else but airs; for bodies are contained by these, and the cause that every one of the bodies contained in any habit is such as it is, is the containing air, which they call in iron hardness, in stone solidness, in silver whiteness. these words have in them much absurdity and contradiction. for if the air remains such as it is of its own nature, how comes black, in that which is not white, to be made whiteness; and soft, in that which is not hard, to be made hardness; and rare, in that which is not thick, to be made thickness? but if, being mixed with these, it is altered and made like to them, how is it a habit or power or cause of these things by which it is subdued? for such a change, by which it loses its own qualities, is the property of a patient, not of an agent, and not of a thing containing, but of a thing languishing. yet they everywhere affirm, that matter, being of its own nature idle and motionless, is subjected to qualities, and that the qualities are spirits, which, being also aerial tensions, give a form and figure to every part of matter to which they adhere. these things they cannot rationally say, supposing the air to be such as they affirm it. for if it is a habit and tension, it will assimilate every body to itself, so that it shall be black and soft. but if by the mixture with these things it receives forms contrary to those it has, it will be in some sort the matter, and not the cause or power of matter. it is often said by chrysippus, that there is without the world an infinite vacuum, and that this infinity has neither beginning, middle, nor end. and by this the stoics chiefly refute that spontaneous motion of the atoms downward, which is taught by epicurus; there not being in infinity any difference according to which one thing is thought to be above, another below. but in his fourth book of things possible, having supposed a certain middle place and middle region, he says that the world is situated there. the words are these: "wherefore, if it is to be said of the world that it is corruptible, this seems to want proof; yet nevertheless it rather appears to me to be so. however, its occupation of the place wherein it stands cooperates very much towards its immunity from corruption, because it is in the midst; since if it were conceived to be anywhere else, corruption would absolutely happen to it." and again, a little after: "for so also in a manner has essence happened eternally to possess the middle place, being immediately from the beginning such as it is; so that both by another manner and through this chance it admits not any corruption, and is therefore eternal." these words have one apparent and visible contradiction, to wit, his admitting a certain middle place and middle region infinity. they have also a second, more obscure indeed, but withal more absurd than this. for thinking that the world would not have remained incorruptible if its situation had happened to have been in any other part of the vacuum, he manifestly appears to have feared lest, the parts of essence moving towards the middle, there should be a dissolution and corruption of the world. now this he would not have feared, had he not thought that bodies do by nature tend from every place towards the middle, not of essence, but of the region containing essence; of which also he has frequently spoken, as of a thing impossible and contrary to nature; for that (as he says) there is not in the vacuum any difference by which bodies are drawn rather this way than that way, but the construction of the world is the cause of motion, bodies inclining and being carried from every side to the centre and middle of it. it is sufficient to this purpose, to set down the text out of his second book of motion; for having discoursed, that the world indeed is a perfect body, but that the parts of the world are not perfect, because they have in some sort respect to the whole and are not of themselves; and going forward concerning its motion, as having been framed by nature to be moved by all its parts towards compaction and cohesion, and not towards dissolution and breaking, he says thus: "but the universe thus tending and being moved to the same point, and the arts having the same motion from the nature of the body, it is probable that all bodies have this first motion according to nature towards the centre of the world,--the world being thus moved as concerns itself, and the parts being moved as being its parts." what, then, ailed you, good sir (might some one say to him), that you have so far forgotten those words, as to affirm that the world, if it had not casually possessed the middle place, would have been dissoluble and corruptible? for if it is by nature so framed as always to incline towards the middle, and its parts from every side tend to the same, into what place soever of the vacuum it should have been transposed,--thus containing and (as it were) embracing itself,--it would have remained incorruptible and without danger of breaking. for things that are broken and dissipated suffer this by the separation and dissolution of their parts, every one of them hasting to its own place from that which it had contrary to nature. but you, being of opinion that, if the world should have been seated in any other place of the vacuum, it would have been wholly liable to corruption, and affirming the same, and therefore asserting a middle in that which naturally can have no middle,--to wit, in that which is infinite,--have indeed dismissed these tensions, coherences, and inclinations, as having nothing available to its preservation, and attributed all the cause of its permanency to the possession of place. and, as if you were ambitious to confute yourself, to the things you have said before you join this also: "in whatsoever manner every one of the parts moves, being coherent to the rest, it is agreeable to reason that in the same also the whole should move by itself; yea, though we should, for argument's sake, imagine and suppose it to be in some vacuity of this world; for as, being kept in on every side, it would move towards the middle, so it would continue in the same motion, though by way of disputation we should admit that there were on a sudden a vacuum round about it." no part then whatsoever, though encompassed by a vacuum, loses its inclination moving it towards the middle of the world; but the world itself, if chance had not prepared it a place in the middle, would have lost its containing vigor, the parts of its essence being carried some one way, some another. and these things indeed contain great contradictions to natural reason; but this is also repugnant to the doctrine concerning god and providence, that assigning to them the least causes, he takes from them the most principal and greatest. for what is more principal than the permanency of the world, or that its essence, united in its parts, is contained in itself? but this, as chrysippus says, fell out casually. for if the possession of place is the cause of incorruptibility, and this was the production of chance, it is manifest that the preservation of the universe is a work of chance, and not of fate and providence. now, as for his doctrine of possibles, how can it but be repugnant to his doctrine of fate? for if that is not possible which either is true or shall be true, as diodorus has it, but everything which is capable of being, though it never shall be, is possible, there will be many things possible which will never be according to invincible, inviolable, and all-conquering fate. and thus either fate will lose its power; or if that, as chrysippus thinks, has existence, that which is susceptible of being will often fall out to be impossible. and everything indeed which is true will be necessary, being comprehended by the principal of all necessities; and everything that is false will be impossible, having the greatest cause to oppose its ever being true. for how is it possible that he should be susceptible of dying on the land, who is destined to die at sea? and how is it possible for him who is at megara to come to athens, if he is prohibited by fate? but moreover, the things that are boldly asserted by him concerning fantasies or imaginations are very opposite to fate. for desiring to show that fantasy is not of itself a perfect cause of consent, he says, that the sages will prejudice us by imprinting false imaginations in our minds, if fantasies do of themselves absolutely cause consent; for wise men often make use of falsity against the wicked, representing a probable imagination,--which is yet not the cause of consent, for then it would be also a cause of false apprehension and error. any one therefore, transferring these things from the wise man to fate, may say, that consents are not caused by fate; for if they were, false consents and opinions and deceptions would also be by fate. thus the reason which exempts the wise man from doing hurt also demonstrates at the same time that fate is not the cause of all things. for if men neither opine nor are prejudiced by fate, it is manifest also that they neither act rightly nor are wise nor remain firm in their sentiments nor have utility by fate, but that there is an end of fate's being the cause of all things. now if any one shall say that chrysippus makes not fate the absolute cause of all things, but only a procatarclical (or antecedent) one, he will again show that he is contradictory to himself, since he excessively praises homer for saying of jupiter, receive whatever good or ill he sends to each of you; as also euripides for these words, o jove, how can i say that wretched we, poor mortals, aught do understand? on thee we all depend, and nothing can transact, but as thy sacred wisdom shall enact. (euripides, "suppliants," 734.) and himself writes many things agreeable to these. in fine, he says that nothing, be it never so little, either rests or is moved otherwise than according to the reason of jupiter, which is the same thing with fate. moreover, the antecedent cause is weaker than the absolute one, and attains not to its effect when it is subdued by others that rise up against it. but he himself declaring fate to be an invincible, unimpeachable, and inflexible cause, calls it atropos, (that is, unchangeable.) adrasteia, (that is, unavoidable.) necessity, and pepromene (as putting a limit to all things). whether then shall we say, that neither consents nor virtues nor vices nor doing well nor doing ill is in our power? or shall we affirm, that fate is deficient, that terminating destiny is unable to determine, and that the motions and habits of jupiter cannot be effective? for the one of these two consequences will follow from fate's being an absolute, the other from its being only an antecedent cause. for if it is an absolute cause, it takes away our free will and leaves nothing in our control; and if it is only antecedent, it loses its being unimpeachable and effectual. for not once or ten times, but everywhere, especially in his physics, he has written, that there are many obstacles and impediments to particular natures and motions, but none to that of the universe. and how can the motion of the universe, extending as it does to particular ones, be undisturbed and unimpeached, if these are stopped and hindered? for neither can the nature of man be free from impediment, if that of the foot or hand is not so; nor can the motion of a ship but be hindered, if there are any obstacles about the sails or the operation of the oars. besides all this, if the fantasies are not according to fate, neither are they causes of consents; but if, because it imprints fantasies leading to consent, the consents are said to be according to fate, how is it not contrary to itself, imprinting in the greatest matters different imaginations and such as draw the understanding contrary ways? for (they say) those who adhere to one of them, and withhold not their consent, do amiss: if they yield to obscure things, they stumble; if to false, they are deceived; if to such as are not commonly comprehended, they opine. and yet one of these three is of necessity,--either that every fantasy is not the work of fate, or that every receipt and consent of fantasy is faultless, or that fate itself is not irreprehensible. for i do not know how it can be blameless, proposing to us such fantasies that not the resisting or going against them, but the following and yielding to them, is blamable. moreover, both chrysippus and antipater, in their disputes against the academics, take not a little pains to prove that we neither act nor are incited without consent, saying, that they build on fictions and false suppositions who think that, a proper fantasy being presented, we are presently incited, without having either yielded or consented. again, chrysippus says, that god imprints in us false imaginations, as does also the wise man; not that they would have us consent or yield to them, but only that we should act and be incited with regard to that which appears; but we, being evil, do through infirmity consent to such fantasies. now, the perplexity and discrepancy of these discourses among themselves are not very difficult to be discerned. for he that would not have men consent but only act according to the fantasies which he offers unto them--whether he be god or a wise man--knows that the fantasies are sufficient for acting, and that consents are superfluous. for if, knowing that the imagination gives us not an instinct to work without consent, he ministers to us false and probable fantasies, he is the voluntary cause of our falling and erring by assenting to incomprehensible things. end of seven----------the eating of flesh. tract i. you ask of me then for what reason it was that pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. i for my part do much wonder in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste, while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and juices of deadly wounds. crept the raw hides, and with a bellowing sound roared the dead limbs; the burning entrails groaned. ("odyssey," xii. 395.) this indeed is but a fiction and fancy; but the fare itself is truly monstrous and prodigious,--that a man should have a stomach to creatures while they yet bellow, and that he should be giving directions which of things yet alive and speaking is fittest to make food of, and ordering the several kinds of the seasoning and dressing them and serving them up to tables. you ought rather, in my opinion, to have inquired who first began this practice, than who of late times left it off. and truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was scarcity and want of other food; for it is not likely that their living together in lawless and extravagant lusts, or their growing wanton and capricious through the excessive variety of provisions then among them, brought them to such unsociable pleasures as these, against nature. yea, had they at this instant but their sense and voice restored to them, i am persuaded they would express themselves to this purpose: "oh! happy you, and highly favored of the gods, who now live! into what an age of the world are you fallen, who share and enjoy among you a plentiful portion of good things! what abundance of things spring up for your use! what fruitful vineyards you enjoy! what wealth you gather from the fields! what delicacies from trees and plants, which you may gather! you may glut and fill yourselves without being polluted. as for us, we fell upon the most dismal and affrighting part of time, in which we were exposed by our production to manifold and inextricable wants and necessities. as yet the thickened air concealed the heaven from our view, and the stars were as yet confused with a disorderly huddle of fire and moisture and violent fluxions of winds. as yet the sun was not fixed to a regular and certain course, so as to separate morning and evening, nor did the seasons return in order crowned with wreaths from the fruitful harvest. the land was also spoiled by the inundations of disorderly rivers; and a great part of it was deformed with marshes, and utterly wild by reason of deep quagmires, unfertile forests, and woods. there was then no production of tame fruits, nor any instruments of art or invention of wit. and hunger gave no time, nor did seed-time then stay for the yearly season. what wonder is it if we made use of the flesh of beasts contrary to nature, when mud was eaten and the bark of wood, and when it was thought a happy thing to find either a sprouting grass or a root of any plant! but when they had by chance tasted of or eaten an acorn, they danced for very joy about some oak or esculus, calling it by the names of life-giver, mother, and nourisher. and this was the only festival that those times were acquainted with; upon all other occasions, all things were full of anguish and dismal sadness. but whence is it that a certain ravenousness and frenzy drives you in these happy days to pollute yourselves with blood, since you have such an abundance of things necessary for your subsistence? why do you belie the earth as unable to maintain you? why do you profane the lawgiver ceres, and shame the mild and gentle bacchus, as not furnishing you with sufficiency? are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood and slaughter? you are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and come nothing behind them in cruelty. what they kill is their ordinary nourishment, but what you kill is your better fare." for we eat not lions and wolves by way of revenge; but we let those go, and catch the harmless and tame sort, and such as have neither stings nor teeth to bite with, and slay them; which, so may jove help us, nature seems to us to have produced for their beauty and comeliness only. [just as if one seeing the river nilus overflowing its banks, and thereby filling the whole country with genial and fertile moisture, should not at all admire that secret power in it that produces plants and plenteousness of most sweet and useful fruits, but beholding somewhere a crocodile swimming in it, or an asp crawling along, or mice (savage and filthy creatures), should presently affirm these to be the occasion of all that is amiss, or of any want or defect that may happen. or as if indeed one contemplating this land or ground, how full it is of tame fruits, and how heavy with ears of corn, should afterwards espy somewhere in these same cornfields an ear of darnel or a wild vetch, and thereupon neglect to reap and gather in the corn, and fall a complaining of these. such another thing it would be, if one--listening to the harangue of some advocate at some bar or pleading, swelling and enlarging and hastening towards the relief of some impending danger, or else, by jupiter, in the impeaching and charging of certain audacious villanies or indictments, flowing and rolling along, and that not in a simple and poor strain, but with many sorts of passions all at once, or rather indeed with all sorts, in one and the same manner, into the many and various and differing minds of either hearers or judges that he is either to turn and change, or else, by jupiter, to soften, appease, and quiet--should overlook all this business, and never consider or reckon upon the labor or struggle he had undergone, but pick up certain loose expressions, which the rapid motion of the discourse had carried along with it, as by the current of its course, and so had slipped and escaped the rest of the oration, and, hereupon undervalue the orator.] but we are nothing put out of countenance, either by the beauteous gayety of the colors, or by the charmingness of the musical voices, or by the rare sagacity of the intellects, or by the cleanliness and neatness of diet, or by the rare discretion and prudence of these poor unfortunate animals; but for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. and then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them, as it were saying thus to us: "i deprecate not thy necessity (if such there be), but thy wantonness. kill me for thy feeding, but do not take me off for thy better feeding." o horrible cruelty! it is truly an affecting sight to see the very table of rich people laid before them, who keep them cooks and caterers to furnish them with dead corpses for their daily fare; but it is yet more affecting to see it taken away, for the mammocks remaining are more than that which was eaten. these therefore were slain to no purpose. others there are, who are so offended by what is set before them that they will not suffer it to be cut or sliced; thus abstaining from them when dead, while they would not spare them when alive. well, then, we understand that that sort of men are used to say, that in eating of flesh they follow the conduct and direction of nature. but that it is not natural to mankind to feed on flesh, we first of all demonstrate from the very shape and figure of the body. for a human body no ways resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. but even from hence, that is, from the smoothness of the tongue, and the slowness of the stomach to digest, nature seems to disclaim all pretence to fleshy victuals. but if you will contend that yourself was born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. but do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet, or axe,--as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do. but if thou hadst rather stay until what thou greatest is become dead, and if thou art loath to force a soul out of its body, why then dost thou against nature eat an animate thing? nay, there is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing as it is; but they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare. it was indeed a witty expression of a lacedaemonian, who, having purchased a small fish in a certain inn, delivered it to his landlord to be dressed; and as he demanded cheese, and vinegar, and oil to make sauce, he replied, if i had had those, i would not have bought the fish. but we are grown so wanton in our bloody luxury, that we have bestowed upon flesh the name of meat [greek omitted], and then require another seasoning [greek omitted], to this same flesh, mixing oil, wine, honey, pickle, and vinegar, with syrian and arabian spices, as though we really meant to embalm it after its disease. indeed when things are dissolved and made thus tender and soft, and are as it were turned into a sort of a carrionly corruption, it must needs be a great difficulty for concoction to master them, and when it hath mastered them, they must needs cause grievous oppressions and qualmy indigestions. diogenes ventured once to eat a raw pourcontrel, that he might disuse himself from meat dressed by fire; and as several priests and other people stood round him, he wrapped his head in his cassock, and so putting the fish to his mouth, he thus said unto them: it is for your sake, sirs, that i undergo this danger, and run this risk. a noble and gallant risk, by jupiter! for far otherwise than as pelopidas ventured his life for the liberty of the thebans, and harmodius and aristogiton for that of the athenians, did this philosopher encounter with a raw pourcontrel, to the end he might make human life more brutish. moreover, these same flesh-eatings not only are preternatural to men's bodies, but also by clogging and cloying them, they render their very minds and intellects gross. for it is well known to most, that wine and much flesh-eating make the body indeed strong and lusty, but the mind weak and feeble. and that i may not offend the wrestlers, i will make use of examples out of my own country. the athenians are wont to call us boeotians gross, senseless, and stupid fellows, for no other reason but our over-much eating; by pindar we are called hogs, for the same reason. menander the comedian calls us "fellows with long jaws." it is observed also that, according to the saying of heraclitus, "the wisest soul is like a dry light." earthen jars, if you strike them, will sound; but if they be full, they perceive not the strokes that are given them. copper vessels also that are thin communicate the sound round about them, unless some one stop and dull the ambient stroke with his fingers. moreover, the eye, when seized with an over-great plenitude of humors, grows dim and feeble for its ordinary work. when we behold the sun through a humid air and a great quantity of gross and indigested vapors, we see it not clear and bright, but obscure and cloudy, and with glimmering beams. just so in a muddy and clogged body, that is swagged down with heavy and unnatural nourishments; it must needs happen that the gayety and splendor of the mind be confused and dulled, and that it ramble and roll after little and scarce discernible objects, since it wants clearness and vigor for higher things. but to pass by these considerations, is not accustoming one's self to mildness and a human temper of mind an admirable thing? for who would wrong or injure a man that is so sweetly and humanly disposed with respect to the ills of strangers that are not of his kind? i remember that three days ago, as i was discoursing, i made mention of a saying of xenocrates, and how the athenians gave judgment upon a certain person who had flayed a living ram. for my part i cannot think him a worse criminal that torments a poor creature while living, than a man that shall take away its life and murder it. but (as it seems) we are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature. there, however, i discussed these matters in a more popular style. but as for that grand and mysterious principle which (as plato speaks) is incredible to base minds and to such as affect only mortal things, i as little care to move it in this discourse as a pilot doth a ship in a storm, or a comedian his machine while the scenes are moving; but perhaps it would not be amiss, by way of introduction and preface, to repeat certain verses of empedocles.... for in these, by way of allegory, he hints at men's souls, as that they are tied to mortal bodies, to be punished for murders, eating of flesh and of one another, although this doctrine seems much, ancienter than his time. for the fables that are storied and related about the discerption of bacchus, and the attempts of the titans upon him, and of their tasting of his slain body, and of their several punishments and fulminations afterwards, are but a representation of the regeneration. for what in us is unreasonable, disorderly, and boisterous, being not divine but demoniac, the ancients termed titans, that is, tormented and punished (from [greek omitted]).... tract ii. reason persuades us now to return with fresh cogitations and dispositions to what we left cold yesterday of our discourse about flesh-eating. it is indeed a hard and a difficult task to undertake (as cato once said) to dispute with men's bellies, that have no ears; since most have already drunk that draught of custom, which is like that of ciree, of groans and frauds and sorcery replete. ("odyssey," x. 234.) and it is no easy task to pull out the hook of flesh-eating from the jaws of such as have gorged themselves with luxury and are (as it were) nailed down with it. it would indeed be a good action, if as the egyptians draw out the stomach of a dead body, and cut it open and expose it to the sun, as the only cause of all its evil actions, so we could, by cutting out our gluttony and blood-shedding, purify and cleanse the remainder of our lives. for the stomach itself is not guilty of bloodshed, but is involuntarily polluted by our intemperance. but if this may not be, and we are ashamed by reason of custom to live unblamably, let us at least sin with discretion. let us eat flesh; but let it be for hunger and not for wantonness. let us kill an animal; but let us do it with sorrow and pity, and not abusing and tormenting it, as many nowadays are used to do, while some run red-hot spits through the bodies of swine, that by the tincture of the quenched iron the blood may be to that degree mortified, that it may sweeten and soften the flesh in its circulation; others jump and stamp upon the udders of sows that are ready to pig, that so they may crush into one mass (o piacular jupiter!) in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and the corruption of the mashed and mangled young ones, and so eat the most inflamed part of the animal; others sew up the eyes of cranes and swans, and so shut them up in darkness to be fattened, and then souse up their flesh with certain monstrous mixtures and pickles. by all which it is most manifest, that it is not for nourishment, or want, or any necessity, but for mere gluttony, wantonness, and expensiveness, that they make a pleasure of villany. just as it happens in persons who cannot satiate their passion upon women, and having made trial of everything else and falling into vagaries, at last attempt things not to be mentioned; even so inordinateness in feeding, when it hath once passed the bounds of nature and necessity, studies at last to diversify the lusts of its intemperate appetite by cruelty and villany. for the senses, when they once quit their natural measures, sympathize with each other in their distempers, and are enticed by each other to the same consent and intemperance. thus a distempered ear first debauched music, the soft and effeminate notes of which provoke immodest touches and lascivious tickling. these things first taught the eye not to delight in pyrrhic dances, gesticulations of hands, or elegant pantomimes, nor in statues and fine paintings; but to reckon the slaughtering and death of mankind and wounds and duels the most sumptuous of shows and spectacles. thus unlawful tables are accompanied with intemperate copulations, with unmusicianlike balls, and theatres become monstrous through shameful songs and rehearsals; and barbarous and brutish shows are again accompanied with an unrelenting temper and savage cruelty towards mankind. hence it was that the divine lycurgus in his three books of laws gave orders that the doors and ridges of men's houses should be made with a saw and an axe, and that no other instrument should so much as be brought to any house. not that he did hereby intend to declare war against augers and planes and other instruments of finer work; but because he very well knew that with such tools as these you will never bring into your house a gilded couch, and that you will never attempt to bring into a slender cottage either silver tables, purple carpets, or costly stones; but that a plain supper and a homely dinner must accompany such a house, couch table, and cup. the beginning of a vicious diet is presently followed by all sorts of luxury and expensiveness, ev'n as a mare is by her thirsty colt. ============= and what meal is not expensive? one for which no animal is put to death. shall we reckon a soul to be a small expense? i will not say perhaps of a mother, or a father, or of some friend, or child, as empedocles did; but one participating of feeling, of seeing, of hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath received from nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable. do but consider this with yourself now, which sort of philosophers render us most tame and civil, they who bid people to feed on their children, friends, fathers, and wives, when they are dead; or pythagoras and empedocles, that accustom men to be just towards even the other members of the creation. you laugh at a man that will not eat a sheep: but we (they will say again)--when we see you cutting off the parts of your dead father or mother, and sending it to your absent friends, and calling upon and inviting your present friends to eat the rest freely and heartily--shall we not smile? nay, peradventure we offend at this instant time while we touch these books, without having first cleansed our hands, eyes, feet, and ears; if it be not (by jupiter) a sufficient purgation of them to have discoursed of these matters in potable and fresh language (as plato speaketh), thereby washing off the brackishness of hearing. now if a man should set these books and discourses in opposition to each other, he will find that the philosophy of the one sort suits with the seythians, sogdians, and melanchlaenians, of whom herodotus's relation is scarce believed; but the sentiments of pythagoras and empedocles were the laws and customs of the ancients grecians. who, then, were the first authors of this opinion, that we owe no justice to dumb animals? who first beat out accursed steel, and made the lab'ring ox a knife to feel. in the very same manner oppressors and tyrants begin first to shed blood. for example, the first man that the athenians ever put to death was one of the basest of all knaves, who had the reputation of deserving it; after him they put to death a second and a third. after this, being now accustomed to blood, they patiently saw niceratus the son of nicias, and their own general theramenes, and polemarchus the philosopher suffer death. even so, in the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. and the desire of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness, being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars. now even if one cannot demonstrate and make out, that souls in their regenerations make a promiscuous use of all bodies, and that that which is now rational will at another time be irrational, and that again tame which is now wild,--for that nature changes and transmutes everything, with different fleshy coats new clothing all,-this thing should be sufficient to change and show men, that it is a savage and intemperate habit, that it brings sickness and heaviness upon the body, and that it inclines the mind the more brutishly to bloodshed and destruction, when we have once accustomed ourselves neither to entertain a guest nor keep a wedding nor to treat our friends without blood and slaughter. and if what is argued about the return of souls into bodies is not of force enough to beget faith, yet methinks the very uncertainty of the thing should fill us with apprehension and fear. suppose, for instance, one should in some night-engagement run on with his drawn sword upon one that had fallen down and covered his body with his arms, and should in the meantime hear one say, that he was not very sure, but that he fancied and believed, that the party lying there was his own son, brother, father, or tent-companion; which were more advisable, think you,--to hearken to a false suggestion, and so to let go an enemy under the notion of a friend, or to slight an authority not sufficient to beget faith, and to slay a friend instead of a foe? this you will all say would be insupportable. do but consider the famous merope in the tragedy, who taking up a hatchet, and lifting it at her son's head, whom she took for her son's murderer, speaks thus as she was ready to give the fatal blow, villain, this holy blow shall cleave thy head; (euripides, "cresphontes," frag. 457.) what a bustle she raises in the whole theatre while she raises herself to give the blow, and what a fear they are all in, lest she should prevent the old man that comes to stop her hand, and should wound the youth. now if another old man should stand by her and say, "strike, it is thy enemy," and this, "hold, it is thy son"; which, think you, would be the greater injustice, to omit the punishing of an enemy for the sake of one's child, or to suffer one's self to be so carried away with anger at an enemy as to slay one's child? since then neither hatred nor wrath nor any revenge nor fear for ourselves carries us to the slaughter of a beast, but the poor sacrifice stands with an inclined neck, only to satisfy thy lust and pleasure, and then one philosopher stands by and tells thee, "cut him down, it is but an unreasonable animal," and another cries, "hold, what if there should be the soul of some kinsman or god enclosed in him?"--good gods! is there the like danger if i refuse to eat flesh, as if i for want of faith murder my child or some other friend? the stoics' way of reasoning upon this subject of flesh-eating is no way equal nor consonant with themselves. who is this that hath so many mouths for his belly and the kitchen? whence comes it to pass, that they so very much womanize and reproach pleasure, as a thing that they will not allow to be either good or preferable, or so much as agreeable, and yet all on a sudden become so zealous advocates for pleasures? it were indeed but a reasonable consequence of their doctrine, that, since they banish perfumes and cakes from their banquets, they should be much more averse to blood and to flesh. but now, just as if they would reduce their philosophy to their account-books, they lessen the expenses of their suppers in certain unnecessary and needless matters, but the untamed and murderous part of their expense they nothing boggle at. "well! what then?" say they. "we have nothing to do with brute beasts." nor have you any with perfumes, nor with foreign sauces, may some one answer; therefore leave these out of your banquets, if you are driving out everything that is both useless and needless. let us therefore in the next place consider, whether we owe any justice to the brute beasts. neither shall we handle this point artificially, or like subtle sophisters, but by casting our eye into our own breasts, and conversing with ourselves as men, we will weigh and examine the whole matter.... end of eight----------concerning fate. ("this little treatise is so pitiously torne, maimed, and dismembred thorowout, that a man may sooner divine and guess thereat (as i have done) than translate it."--holland.) i will endeavor, my dearest piso, to send you my opinion concerning fate, written with all the clearness and compendiousness i am capable of; since you, who are not ignorant how cautious i am of writing, have thought fit to make it the subject of your request. you are first, then, to know that this word fate is spoken and understood two manner of ways; the one as it is an energy, the other as it is a substance. first, therefore, as it is an action, plato (see plato, "phaedrus," p. 248 c; "timaeus," p.41 e; "republic," x. p.617 d.) has under a type described it, saying thus in his dialogue entitled phaedrus: "and this is a sanction of adrastea (or an inevitable ordinance), that whatever soul being an attendant on god," &c. and in his treatise called timaeus: "the laws which god in the nature of the universe has established for immortal souls." and in his book of a commonweal he entitles fate "the speech of the virgin lachesis, who is the daughter of necessity." by which sentences he not tragically but theologically shows us what his sentiments are in this matter. now if any one, paraphrasing the fore-cited passages, would have them expressed in more familiar terms, the description in phaedrus may be thus explained: that fate is a divine sentence, intransgressible since its cause cannot be divested or hindered. and according to what he has said in his timaeus, it is a law ensuing on the nature of the universe, according to which all things that are done are transacted. for this does lachesis effect, who is indeed the daughter of necessity,--as we have both already related, and shall yet better understand by that which will be said in the progress of our discourse. thus you see what fate is, when it is taken for an action. but as it is a substance, it seems to be the universal soul of the world, and admits of a threefold distribution; the first destiny being that which errs not; the second, that which is thought to err; and the third that which, being under the heaven, is conversant about the earth. of these, the highest is called clotho, the next atropos, and the lowest, lachesis; who, receiving the celestial influences and efficacies of her sisters, transmits and fastens them to the terrestrial things which are under her government. thus have we declared briefly what is to be said of fate, taken as a substance; what it is, what are its parts, after what manner it is, how it is ordained, and how it stands, both in respect to itself and to us. but as to the particularities of these things, there is another fable in his commonweal, by which they are in some measure covertly insinuated, and we ourselves have, in the best manner we can, endeavored to explain them to you. but we now once again turn our discourse to fate, as it is an energy. for concerning this it is that there are so many natural, moral, and logical questions. having therefore already in some sort sufficiently defined what it is, we are now in the next place to say something of its quality, although it may to many seem absurd. i say then that fate, though comprehending as it were in a circle the infinity of all those things which are and have been from infinite times and shall be to infinite ages, is not in itself infinite, but determinate and finite; for neither law, reason, nor any other divine thing can be infinite. and this you will the better understand, if you consider the total revolution and the total time in which the revolutions of the eight circles (that is, of the eight spheres of the fixed stars, sun, moon, and five planets), having (as timaeus (plato, "timaeus," p.39 d.) says) finished their course, return to one and the same point, being measured by the circle of the same, which goes always after one manner. for in this order, which is finite and determinate, shall all things (which, as well in heaven as in earth, consist by necessity from above) be reduced to the same situation, and restored again to their first beginning. wherefore the habitude of heaven alone, being thus ordained in all things, as well in regard of itself as of the earth and all terrestrial matters, shall again (after long revolutions) one day return; and those things that in order follow after, and being linked together in a continuity are maintained in their course, shall follow, every one of them by necessity bringing what is its own. but for the better clearing of this matter, let us understand that whatever is in us or about us is not wrought by the course of the heavens and heavenly influences, as being entirely the efficient cause both of my writing what i now write, and of your doing also what you at present do, and in the same manner as you do it. hereafter, then, when the same cause shall return, we shall do the same things we now do and in the same manner, and shall again become the same men; and so it will be with all others. and that which follows after shall also happen by the following cause; and in brief, all things that shall happen in the whole and in every one of these universal revolutions shall again become the same. by this it appears (as we have said before) that fate, being in some sort infinite, is nevertheless determinate and finite; and it may be also in some sort seen and comprehended, as we have farther said, that it is as it were a circle. for as a motion of a circle is a circle, and the time that measures it is also a circle; so the order of things which are done and happen in a circle may be justly esteemed and called a circle. this, therefore, though there should be nothing else, almost shows us what sort of thing fate is; but not particularly or in every respect. what kind of thing then is it in its own form? it is, as far as one can compare it, like to the civil or politic law. for first it orders the most part of things at least, if not all, conditionally; and then it comprises (as far as is possible for it) all things that belong to the public in general; and the better to make you understand both the one and the other, we must specify them by an example. the civil law speaks and ordains in general of a valiant man, and also of a deserter and a coward; and in the same manner of others. now this is not to make the law speak of this or that man in particular, but principally to propose such things as are universal or general, and consequently such as fall under them. for we may very well say, that it is legal to reward this from his colors; because the law has virtually--though not in express terms and particularly yet in such general ones as they are comprehended under,--so determined of them. as the law (if i may so speak) of physicians and masters of corporal exercises potentially comprehends particular and special things within the general; so the law of nature, determining first and principally general matters, secondarily and subordinately determines such as are particular. thus, general things being decreed by fate, particular and individual things may also in some sort be said to be so, because they are so by consequence with the general. but perhaps some one of those who more accurately examine and more subtly search into these things may say, on the contrary, that particular and individual things precede the composition of general things, and that the general exist only for the particular, since that for which another thing is always goes before that which is for it. nevertheless, this is not the proper place to treat of this difficulty, but it is to be remitted to another. however, that fate comprehends not all things clearly and expressly, but only such as are universal and general, let it pass for resolved on at present, as well for what we have already said a little before, as for what we shall say hereafter. for that which is finite and determinate, agreeing properly with divine providence, is seen more in universal and general things than in particular; such therefore is the divine law, and also the civil; but infinity consists in particulars and individuals. after this we are to declare what this term "conditionally" means; for it is to be thought that fate is also some such thing. that, then, is said to be conditionally, which is supposed to exist not of itself or absolutely, but as really dependent upon and joined to another; which signifies a suit and consequence. "and this is the sanction of adrastea (or an inevitable ordinance), that whatever soul, being an attendant on god, shall see anything of truth, shall till another revolution be exempt from punishment; and if it is ever able to do the same, it shall never suffer any damage." this is said both conditionally and also universally. now that fate is some such thing is clearly manifest, as well from its substance as from its name. for it is called [greek omitted] as being [greek omitted], that is, dependent and linked; and it is a sanction or law, because things are therein ordained and disposed consequentially, as is usual in civil government. we ought in the next place to consider and treat of mutual relation and affection; that is, what reference and respect fate has to divine providence, what to fortune, what also to "that which is in our power," what to contingent and other such like things; and furthermore we are to determine, how far and in what it is true or false that all things happen and are done by and according to fate. for if the meaning is, that all things are comprehended and contained in fate, it must be granted that this proposition is true; and if any would farther have it so understood, that all things which are done amongst men, on earth, and in heaven are placed in fate, let this also pass as granted for the present. but if (as the expression seems rather to imply) the "being done according to fate" signifies not all things, but only that which is a direct consequent of fate, then it must not be said that all things happen and are done by and according to fate, though all things are so according to fate as to be comprised in it. for all things that the law comprehends and of which it speaks are not legal or according to law; for it comprehends treason, it treats of the cowardly running away from one's colors in time of battle, of adultery, and many other such like things, of which it cannot be said that any one of them is lawful. neither indeed can i affirm of the performing a valorous act in war, the killing of a tyrant, or the doing any other virtuous deed, that it is legal; because that only is proper to be called legal, which is commanded by the law. now if the law commands these things, how can they avoid being rebels against the law and transgressors of it, who neither perform valiant feats of arms, kill tyrants, nor do any other such remarkable acts of virtue? and if they are transgressors of the law, why is it not just they should be punished? but if this is not reasonable, it must then be also confessed that these things are not legal or according to law; but that legal and according to law is only that which is particularly prescribed and expressly commanded by the law, in any action whatsoever. in like manner, those things only are fatal and according to fate, which are the consequences of causes preceding in the divine disposition. so that fate indeed comprehends all things which are done; yet many of those things that are comprehended in it, and almost all that precede, should not (to speak properly) be pronounced to be fatal or according to fate. these things being so, we are next in order to show, how "that which is in our power" (or free will), fortune, possible, contingent, and other like things which are placed among the antecedent causes, can consist with fate, and fate with them; for fate, as it seems, comprehends all things, and yet all these things will not happen by necessity, but every one of them according to the principle of its nature. now the nature of the possible is to presubsist, as the genus, and to go before the contingent; and the contingent, as the matter and subject, is to be in the sphere of free will; and our free will ought as a master to make use of the contingent; and fortune comes in by the side of free will, through the property of the contingent of inclining to either part. now you will more easily apprehend what has been said, if you shall consider that everything which is generated, and the generation itself, is not done without a generative faculty or power, and the power is not without a substance. as for example, neither the generation of man, nor that which is generated, is without a power; but this power is about man, and man himself is the substance. now the power or faculty is between the substance, which is the powerful, and the generation and the thing generated, which are both possibles. there being then these three things, the power, the powerful, and the possible; before the power can exist, the powerful must of necessity be presupposed as its subject, and the power must also necessarily subsist before the possible. by this deduction then may in some measure be understood what is meant by possible; which may be grossly defined as "that which power is able to produce;" or yet more exactly, if to this same there be added, "provided there be nothing from without to hinder or obstruct it." now of possible things there are some which can never be hindered, as are those in heaven, to wit, the rising and setting of the stars, and the like to these; but others may indeed be hindered, as are the most part of human things, and many also of those which are done in the air. the first, as being done by necessity, are called necessary; the others, which may fall one way or other, are called contingent; and they may both thus be described. the necessary possible is that whose contrary is impossible; and the contingent possible is that whose contrary is also possible. for that the sun should set is a thing both necessary and possible, forasmuch as it is contrary to this that the sun should not set, which is impossible; but that, when the sun is set, there should be rain or not rain, both the one and the other is possible and contingent. and then again of things contingent, some happen oftener, others rarely and not so often, others fall out equally or indifferently, as well the one way as the other, even as it happens. now it is manifest that those are contrary to one another,--to wit, those which fall out oftener and those which happen but seldom,--and they both for the most part are dependent on nature; but that which happens equally, as much one way as another, depends on ourselves. for that under the dog it should be either hot or cold, the one oftener, the other seldomer, are both things subject to nature; but to walk and not to walk, and all such things of which both the one and the other are submitted to the free will of man, are said to be in us and our election; but rather more generally to be in us. for there are two sorts of this "being in our power"; the one of which proceeds from some sudden passion and motion of the mind, as from anger or pleasure; the other from the discourse and judgment of reason, which may properly be said to be in our election. and some reason there is to hold that this possible and contingent is the same thing with that which is said to be in our power and according to our free will, although named differently. for in respect to the future, it is called possible and contingent; and in respect of the present, it is named "in our power" and "in our free choice." these things may thus be defined: the contingent is that which is itself--as well as its contrary--possible; and "that which is in our power" is one part of the contingent, to wit, that which now takes place according to our choice. thus have we in a manner declared, that the possible in the order of nature precedes the contingent, and that the contingent exists before free will; as also what each of them is, whence they are so named, and what are the qualities adjoined or appertaining to them. it now remains, that we treat of fortune and casual adventure, and whatever else is to be considered with them. it is therefore certain that fortune is a cause. now of causes, some are causes by themselves, and others by accident. thus for example, the proper cause by itself of an house or a ship is the art of the mason, the carpenter, or the shipwright; but accidental causes are music, geometry, and whatever else may happen to be joined with the art of building houses or ships, in respect either of the body, the soul, or any exterior thing. whence it appears, that the cause by itself must needs be determinate and one; but the causes by accident are never one and the same, but infinite and undetermined. for many--nay, infinite--accidents, wholly different one from the other, may be in one and the same subject. now the cause by accident, when it is found in a thing which not only is done for some end but has in it free will and election, is then called fortune; as is the finding a treasure while one is digging a hole to plant a tree, or the doing or suffering some extraordinary thing whilst one is flying, following, or otherwise walking, or only turning about, provided it be not for the sake of that which happens, but for some other intention. hence it is, that some of the ancients have declared fortune to be a cause unknown that cannot be foreseen by the human reason. but according to the platonics, who have approached yet nearer to the true reason of it, it is thus defined: fortune is a cause by accident, in those things which are done for some end, and which are of our election. and afterwards they add, that it is unforeseen and unknown to the human reason; although that which is rare and strange appears also by the same means to be in this kind of cause by accident. but what this is, if it is not sufficiently evidenced by the oppositions and disputations made against it, will at least most clearly be seen by what is written in plato's phaedo, where you will find these words:-phaed. have you not heard how and in what manner the judgment passed? ech. yes indeed; for there came one and told us of it. at which we wondered very much that, the judgment having been given long before, it seems that he died a great while after. and what, phaedo, might be the cause of it? phaed. it was a fortune which happened to him, echecrates. for it chanced that, the day before the judgment, the prow of the galley which the athenians send every year to the isle of delos was crowned. (plato, "phaedo," p.58 a.) in which discourse it is to be observed, that the expression happened to him is not simply to be understood by was done or came to pass, but it much rather regards what befell him through the concurrence of many causes together, one being done in connection with another. for the priest crowned the ship and adorned it with garlands for another end and intention, and not for the sake of socrates; and the judges also had for some other cause condemned him. but the event was contrary to experience, and of such a nature that it might seem to have been effected by the foresight of some human creature, or rather of the superior powers. and so much may suffice to show with what fortune must of necessity subsist, and that there must subsist first such things as are in our free will: what it effects is, like itself called fortune. ============== but chance or casual adventure is of a larger extent than fortune; which it comprehends, and also several other things which may of their own nature happen sometimes one way, sometimes another. and this, as it appears by the derivation of the word, which is in greek [greek omitted] chance, is that which happens of itself, when that which is ordinary happens not, but another thing in its place; such as cold in the dog-days seems to be; for it is sometimes then cold.... once for all, as "that which is in our power" is a part of the contingent, so fortune is a part of chance or casual adventure; and both the two events are conjoined and dependent on the one and the other, to wit, chance on contingent, and fortune on "that which is in our choice,"--and yet not on all, but on what is in our election, as we have already said. wherefore chance is common to things inanimate, as well as to those which are animated; whereas fortune is proper to man only, who has his actions voluntary. and an argument of this is, that to be fortunate and to be happy are thought to be one and the same thing. now happiness is a certain well-doing, and well-doing is proper only to man, and to him perfect. these, then, are the things which are comprised in fate, to wit, contingent, possible, election, "that which is in our power," fortune, chance, and their adjuncts, as are the things signified by the words perhaps and peradventure; all which indeed are contained in fate. yet none of them is fatal. it now remains, that we discourse of divine providence, and show how it comprehends even fate itself. the supreme therefore and first providence is the understanding or (if you had rather) the will of the first and sovereign god, doing good to everything that is in the world, by which all divine things have universally and throughout been most excellently and most wisely ordained and disposed. the second providence is that of the second gods, who go through the heaven, by which temporal and mortal things are orderly and regularly generated, and which pertains to the continuation and preservation of every kind. the third may probably be called the providence and procuration of the daemons, which, being placed on the earth, are the guardians and overseers of human actions. this threefold providence therefore being seen, of which the first and supreme is chiefly and principally so named, we shall not be afraid to say, although we may in this seem to contradict the sentiments of some philosophers, that all things are done by fate and by providence, but not also by nature. but some are done according to providence, these according to one, those according to another,--and some according to fate; and fate is altogether according to providence, while providence is in no wise according to fate. but let this discourse be understood of the first and supreme providence. now that which is done according to another, whatever it is, is always posterior to that according to which it is done; as that which is according to the law is after the law, and that which is according to nature is after nature, so that which is according to fate is after fate, and must consequently be more new and modern. wherefore supreme providence is the most ancient of all things, except him whose will or understanding it is, to wit, the sovereign author, maker, and father of all things. "let us therefore," says timaeus, "discourse for what cause the creator made and framed this machine of the universe. he was good, and in him that is good there can never be imprinted or engendered any envy against anything. being therefore wholly free from this, he desired that all things should, as far as it is possible, resemble himself. he, therefore, who admits this to have been chiefly the principal original of the generation and creation of the world, as it has been delivered to us by wise men, receives that which is most right. for god, who desired that all things should be good, and nothing, as far as possibly might be, evil, taking thus all that was visible,--restless as it was, and moving rashly and confusedly,--reduced it from disorder to order, esteeming the one to be altogether better than the other. for it neither was nor is convenient for him who is in all perfection good, to make anything that should not be very excellent and beautiful." (plato, "timaeus," p.29 d.) this, therefore, and all that follows, even to his disputation concerning human souls, is to be understood of the first providence, which in the beginning constituted all things. afterwards he speaks thus: "having framed the universe, he ordained souls equal in number to the stars, and distributed to each of them one; and having set them, as it were, in a chariot, showed the nature of the universe, and appointed them the laws of fate." (ibid. p.41 d.) who, then, will not believe, that by these words he expressly and manifestly declares fate to be, as it were, a foundation and political constitution of laws, fitted for the souls of men? of which he afterwards renders the cause. as for the second providence, he thus in a manner explains it, saying: "having prescribed them all these laws, to the end that, if there should afterwards happen any fault, he might be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil, he dispersed some of them upon the earth, some into the moon, and some into the other instruments of time. and after this dispersion, he gave in charge to the young gods the making of human bodies, and the making up and adding whatever was wanting and deficient in human souls; and after they had perfected whatever is adherent and consequent to this, they should rule and govern, in the best manner they possibly could, this mortal creature, so far as it might not be the cause of its own evils." (ibid. p.42 d.) for by these words, "that he might be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil," he most clearly signifies the cause of fate; and the order and office of the young gods manifests the second providence; and it seems also in some sort to have touched a little upon the third, if he therefore established laws and ordinances that he might be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil. for god, who is free from all evil, has no need of laws or fate; but every one of these petty gods, drawn on by the providence of him who has engendered them, performs what belongs to his office. now that this is true and agreeable to the opinion of plato, these words of the lawgiver, spoken by him in his book of laws, seems to me to give sufficient testimony: "if there were any man so sufficient by nature, being by divine fortune happily engendered and born, that he could comprehend this, he would have no need of laws to command him. for there is not any law or ordinance more worthy and powerful than knowledge; nor is it suitable that mind, provided it be truly and really free by nature, should be a subject or slave to any one, but it ought to command all." (plato, "laws," ix. p.875 c.) i therefore do for mine own part thus understand and interpret this sentence of plato. there being a threefold providence, the first, as having engendered fate, does in some sort comprehend it; the second, having been engendered with fate, is with it totally comprehended and embraced by the first; the third, as having been engendered after fate, is comprehended by it in the same manner as are free choice and fortune, as we have already said. "for they whom the assistance of a daemon's power does help in their intercourse" says socrates, declaring to theages what is the almost settled ordinance of adrastea "are those whom you also mean; for they advance quickly." (plato, "theages", p.129 e.) in which words, what he says of a daemon's aiding some is to be ascribed to the third providence, and the growing and coming forward with speed to fate. in brief, it is not obscure or doubtful but that this also is a kind of fate. and perhaps it may be found much more probable that the second providence is also comprehended under fate, and indeed all things that are done; since fate, as a substance, has been rightly divided by us into three parts, and the simile of the chain comprehends the revolutions of the heavens in the number and rank of those things which happen conditionally. but concerning these things i will not much contend, to wit, whether they should be called conditional, or rather conjoined with fate, the precedent cause and commander of fate being also fatal. our opinion, then, to speak briefly, is such. but the contrary sentiment not only places all things in fate, but affirms them all to be done by fate. it agrees indeed in all things to the other (the stoic) doctrine; and that which accords to another thing, 'tis clear, is the same with it. in this discourse therefore we have first spoken of the contingent; secondly, of "that which is in our power"; thirdly, of fortune and chance, and whatever depends on them; fourthly, of praise, blame, and whatever depends on them; the fifth and last of all may be said to be prayers to the gods, with their services and ceremonies. for the rest, as to those which are called idle and cropping arguments, and that which is named the argument against destiny, they are indeed but vain subtleties and captious sophisms, according to this discourse. but according to the contrary opinion, the first and principal conclusion seems to be, that there is nothing done without a cause, but that all things depend upon antecedent causes; the second, that the world is governed by nature, and that it conspires, consents, and is compatible with itself; the third seems rather to be testimonies,--of which the first is divination, approved by all sorts of people, as being truly in god; the second is the equanimity and patience of wise men, who take mildly and bear patiently whatever befalls, as happening by divine ordinance and as it ought; the third is the speech so common and usual in every one's mouth, to wit, that every proposition is true or false. thus have we contracted this discourse into a small number of short articles, that we might in few words comprehend the whole matter of fate; into which a scrutiny ought to be made, and the reasons of both opinions to be weighed with a most exact balance. but we shall come to discuss particulars later. end of nine----------against colotes, the disciple and favorite of epicurus. colotes, whom epicurus was wont diminutively and by way of familiarity or fondness to call colotaras and colotarion, composed, o saturninus, and published a little book which he entitled, "that according to the opinions of the other philosophers one cannot so much as live." this was dedicated to king ptolemy. now i suppose that it will not be unpleasant for you to read, when set down in writing, what came into my mind to speak against this colotes, since i know you to be a lover of all elegant and honest treatises, and particularly of such as regard the science of antiquity, and to esteem the bearing in memory and having (as much as possible may be) in hand the discourses of the ancient sages to be the most royal of all studies and exercises. not long since, therefore, as this book was being read, aristodemus of aegium, a familiar friend of ours (whom you well know to be one of the academy, and not a mere thyrsus-bearer, but one of the most frantic celebrators of plato's name), did, i know not how, keep himself contrary to his custom very still all the while, and patiently gave ear to it even to the end. but the reading was scarce well over when he said: well, then, whom shall we cause to rise up and fight against this man, in defence of the philosophers? for i am not of nestor's opinion, who, when the most valiant of those nine warriors that presented themselves to enter into combat was to be chosen, committed the election to the fortune of a lot. yet, answered i, you see he so disposed himself in reference to the lot, that the choice might pass according to the arbitrament of the wisest man; and th' lot drawn from the helmet, as they wished, on ajax fell. but yet since you command me to make the election, how can i think a better choice to make than the divine ulysses? ("iliad," vii. 182; x. 243.) consider therefore, and be well advised, in what manner you will chastise this man. but you know, replied aristodemus, that plato, when highly offended with his boy that waited on him, would not himself beat him, but requested speusippus to do it for him, saying that he himself was angry. as much therefore may i say to you; take this fellow to you, and treat him as you please; for i am in a fit of choler. when therefore all the rest of the company desired me to undertake this office; i must then, said i, speak, since it is your pleasure. but i am afraid that i also shall seem more vehemently transported than is fitting against this book, in the defending and maintaining socrates against the rudeness, scurrility, and insolence of this man; who, because socrates affirmed himself to know nothing certainly, instead of bread (as one would say) present him hay, as if he were a beast, and asks him why he puts meat into his mouth and not into his ear. and yet perhaps some would make but a laughing matter of this, considering the mildness and gentleness of socrates; "but for the whole host of the greeks," that is, of the other philosophers, amongst which are democritus, plato, stilpo, empedocles, parmenides, and melissus, who have been basely traduced and reviled by him, it were not only a shame to be silent, but even a sacrilege in the least point to forbear or recede from freedom of speech in their behalf, who have advanced philosophy to that honor and reputation it has gotten. and our parents indeed have, with the assistance of the gods, given us our life; but to live well comes to us from reason, which we have learned from the philosophers, which favors law and justice, and restrains our concupiscence. now to live well is to live sociably, friendly, temperately, and justly; of all which conditions they leave us not one, who cry out that man's sovereign good lies in his belly, and that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the expense of a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every side removed from them. and in their discourses concerning the soul and the gods, they hold that the soul perishes when it is separated from the body, and that the gods concern not themselves in our affairs. thus the epicureans reproach the other philosophers, that by their wisdom they bereave man of his life; whilst the others on the contrary accuse them of teaching men to live degenerately and like beasts. now these things are scattered here and there in the writings of epicurus, and dispersed through all his philosophy. but this colotes, by having extracted from them certain pieces and fragments of discourses, destitute of any arguments whatever to render them credible and intelligible, has composed his book, being like a shop or cabinet of monsters and prodigies; as you better know than any one else, because you have always in your hands the works of the ancients. but he seems to me, like the lydian, to open not only one gate against himself, but to involve epicurus also in many and those the greatest doubts and difficulties. for he begins with democritus, who receives of him an excellent and worthy reward for his instruction; it being certain that epicurus for a long time called himself a democritean, which as well others affirm, as leonteus, a principal disciple of epicurus, who in a letter which he writ to lycophron says, that epicurus honored democritus, because he first attained, though a little at a distance, the right and sound understanding of the truth, and that in general all the treatise concerning natural things was called democritean, because democritus was the first who happened upon the principles and met with the primitive foundations of nature. and metrodorus says openly of philosophy, if democritus had not gone before and taught the way, epicurus had never attained to wisdom. now if it be true, as colotes holds, that to live according to the opinions of democritus is not to live, epicurus was then a fool in following democritus, who led him to a doctrine which taught him not to live. now the first thing he lays to his charge is, that, by supposing everything to be no more individual than another, he wholly confounds human life. but democritus was so far from having been of this opinion, that he opposed protagoras the philosopher who asserted it, and writ many excellent arguments concluding against him, which this fine fellow colotes never saw nor read, nor yet so much as dreamed of; but deceived himself by misunderstanding a passage which is in his works, where he determines that [greek omitted] is no more than [greek omitted], naming in that place the body by [greek omitted], and the void by [greek omitted], and meaning that the void has its own proper nature and subsistence, as well as the body. but he who is of opinion that nothing has more of one nature than another makes use of a sentence of epicurus, in which he says that all the apprehensions and imaginations given us by the senses are true. for if of two saying, the one, that the wine is sour, and the other, that it is sweet, neither of them shall be deceived by his sensation, how shall the wine be more sour than sweet? and we may often see that some men using one and the same bath find it to be hot, and others find it to be cold; because those order cold water to be put into it, as these do hot. it is said that, a certain lady going to visit berenice, wife to king deiotarus, as soon as ever they approached each other, they both immediately turned their backs, the one, as it seemed, not being able to bear the smell of perfume, nor the other of butter. if, then, the sense of one is no truer than the sense of another, it is also probable, that water is no more cold than hot, nor sweet ointment or butter better or worse scented one than the other. for if any one shall say that it seems the one to one, and the other to another, he will, before he is aware, affirm that they are both the one and the other. and as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much, and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive them to this, that things are no more of one nature than another? for to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and to solve this objection, they teach,--that when almost everything was confused and mixed up together, since it has been arranged by nature that one thing shall fit another thing, it was not the contact or the apprehension of the same quality nor were all parts affected in the same way by what was influencing them. but those only coalesced with anything to which they had a characteristic, symmetrical in a corresponding proportion; so that they are in error so obstinately to insist that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas they ought neither to combat the senses,--because they all touch some quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,--nor to pronounce of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by another. let us investigate who those men are which bring in this opinion that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not those who affirm that every sensible object is a mixture, compounded of all sorts of qualities, like a mixture of new wine fermenting, and who confess that all their rules are lost and their faculty of judging quite gone, if they admit any sensible object that is pure and simple, and do not make each one thing to be many? see now to this purpose, what discourse and debate epicurus makes polyaenus to have with him in his banquet concerning the heat of wine. for when he asked, "do you, epicurus, say, that wine does not heat?" some one answered, "it is not universally to be affirmed that wine heats." and a little after: "for wine seems not to be universally a heater; but such a quantity may be said to heat such a person." and again subjoining the cause, to wit, the compressions and disseminations of the atoms, and having alleged their commixtures and conjunctions with others when the wine comes to be mingled in the body, he adds this conclusion: "it is not universally to be said that wine is endued with a faculty of heating; but that such a quantity may heat such a nature and one so disposed, while such a quantity to such a nature is cooling. for in such a mass there are such natures and complexions of which cold might be composed, and which, united with others in proper measure, would yield a refrigerative virtue. wherefore some are deceived, who say that wine is universally a heater; and others, who say that it is universally a cooler." he then who says that most men are deceived and err, in holding that which is hot to be heating and that which is cold to be cooling, is himself in an error, unless he should allow that his assertion ends in the doctrine that one thing is not more of one nature than another. he farther adds afterwards that oftentimes wine entering into a body brings with it thither neither a calefying nor refrigerating virtue, but, the mass of the body being agitated and disturbed, and a transposition made of the parts, the heat-effecting atoms being assembled together do by their multitude cause a heat and inflammation in the body, and sometimes on the contrary disassembling themselves cause a refrigeration. but it is moreover wholly evident, that we may employ this argument to all those things which are called and esteemed bitter, sweet, purging, dormitive, and luminous, not any one of them having an entire and perfect quality to produce such effects, nor to act rather than to be acted on when they are in the bodies, but being there susceptible, of various temperatures and differences. for epicurus himself, in his second book against theophrastus, affirming that colors are not connatural to bodies, but are engendered there according to certain situations and positions with respect to the sight of man, says: "for this reason a body is no more colored than destitute of color." and a little above he writes thus, word for word: "but apart from this, i know not how a man may say that those bodies which are in the dark have color; although very often, an air equally dark being spread about them, some distinguish diversities of colors, others perceive them not through the weakness of their sight. and moreover, going into a dark house or room, we at our first entrance see no color, but after we have stayed there awhile, we do. wherefore we are to say that every body is not more colored than not colored. now, if color is relative and has its being in regard to something else, so also then is white, and so likewise blue; and if colors are so, so also are sweet and bitter. so that it may truly be affirmed of every quality, that it cannot more properly be said to exist than not to exist. for to those who are in a certain manner disposed, they will be; but to those who are not so disposed, they will not be." colotes therefore has bedashed and bespattered himself and his master with that dirt, in which he says those lie who maintain that things are not more of one quality than another. but is it in this alone, that this excellent man shows himself- to others a physician, whilst himself is full of ulcers? (euripides, frag. 1071.) no indeed; but yet much farther in his second reprehension, without any way minding it, he drives epicurus and democritus out of this life. for he affirms that the statement of democritus--that the atoms are to the senses color by a certain human law or ordinance, that they are by the same law sweetness, and by the same law concretion--is at war with our senses, and that he who uses this reason and persists in this opinion cannot himself imagine whether he is living or dead. i know not how to contradict this discourse; but this i can boldly affirm, that this is as inseparable from the sentences and doctrines of epicurus as they say figure and weight are from atoms. for what is it that democritus says? "there are substances, in number infinite, called atoms (because they cannot be divided), without difference, without quality, and passibility, which move, being dispersed here and there, in the infinite voidness; and that when they approach one another, or meet and are conjoined, of such masses thus heaped together, one appears water, another fire, another a plant, another a man; and that all things are thus properly atoms (as he called them), and nothing else; for there is no generation from what does not exist; and of those things which are nothing can be generated, because these atoms are so firm, that they can neither change, alter, nor suffer; wherefore there cannot be made color of those things which are without color, nor nature or soul of those things which are without quality and impassible." democritus then is to be blamed, not for confessing those things that happen upon his principles, but for supposing principles upon which such things happen. for he should not have supposed immutable principles; or having supposed them, he should have seen that the generation of all quality is taken away; but having seen the absurdity, to deny it is most impudent. but epicurus says, that he supposes the same principles with democritus, but that he says not that color, sweet, white, and other qualities, are by law and ordinance. if therefore not to say is the same as not to confess, he does merely what he is wont to do. for it is as when, taking away divine providence, he nevertheless says that he leaves piety and devotion towards the gods; and when, choosing friendship for the sake of pleasure, that he suffers most grievous pains for his friends; and supposing the universe to be infinite, that he nevertheless takes not away high and low.... indeed having taken the cup, one may drink what he pleases, and return the rest. but in reasoning one ought chiefly to remember this wise apothegm, that where the principles are not necessary, the ends and consequences are necessary. it was not then necessary for him to suppose or (to say better) to steal from democritus, that atoms are the principles of the universe; but having supposed this doctrine, and having pleased and glorified himself in the first probable and specious appearances of it, he must afterwards also swallow that which is troublesome in it, or must show how bodies which have not any quality can bring all sorts of qualities to others only by their meetings and joining together. as--to take that which comes next neither had heat when they came, nor are become hot after their being joined together? for the one presupposes that they had some quality, and the other that they were fit to receive it. and you affirm, that neither the one nor the other must be said to be congruous to atoms, because they are incorruptible. how then? do not plato, aristotle, and xenocrates produce gold from that which is not gold, and stone from that which is not stone, and many other things from the four simple first bodies? yes indeed; but with those bodies immediately concur also the principles for the generation of everything, bringing with them great contributions, that is, the first qualities which are in them; then, when they come to assemble and join in one the dry with the moist, the cold with the hot, and the solid with the soft,--that is, active bodies with such as are fit to suffer and receive every alteration and change,--then is generation wrought by passing from one temperature to another. whereas the atom, being alone, is alone, is deprived and destitute of all quality and generative faculty, and when it comes to meet with the others, it can make only a noise and sound because of its hardness and firmness, but nothing more. for they always strike and are stricken, not being able by this means to compose or make an animal, a soul, or a nature, nay, not so much as a mass or heap of themselves; for that as they beat upon one another, so they fly back again asunder. but colotes, as if he were speaking to some ignorant and unlettered king, again attacks empedocles for expressing the same thought:- i've one thing more to say. 'mongst mortals there no nature is; nor that grim thing men fear so much, called death. there only happens first a mixture, and mixt things asunder burst again, when them disunion does befall. and this is that which men do nature call. for my part, i do not see how this is repugnant and contrary to life or living, especially amongst those who hold that there is no generation of that which is not, nor corruption of that which is, but that the assembling and union of the things which are is called generation, and their dissolution and disunion named corruption and death. for that he took nature for generation, and that this is his meaning, he has himself declared, when he opposed nature to death. and if they neither live nor can live who place generation in union and death in disunion, what else do these epicureans? yet empedocles, gluing, (as it were) and conjoining the elements together by heats, softnesses, and humidifies, gives them in some sort a mixtion and unitive composition; but these men who hunt and drive together the atoms, which they affirm to be immutable and impassible, compose nothing proceeding from them, but indeed make many and continual percussions of them. for the interlacement, hindering the dissolution, more and more augments the collision and concussion; so that there is neither mixtion nor adhesion and conglutination, but only a discord and combat, which according to them is called generation. and if the atoms do now recoil for a moment by reason of the shock they have given, and then return again after the blow is past, they are above double the time absent from one another, without either touching or approaching, so as nothing can be made of them, not even so much as a body without a soul. but as for sense, soul, understanding, and prudence, there is not any man who can in the least conceive or imagine how it is possible they should be made in a voidness, and atoms which neither when separate and apart have any quality, nor any passion or alteration when they are assembled and joined together, especially seeing this their meeting together is not an incorporation or congress, making a mixture or coalition, but rather percussions and repercussions. so that, according to the doctrine of these people, life is taken away, and the existence of an animal denied, since they posit principles void, impassible, godless, and soulless, and such as cannot allow or receive any mixture or commingling whatever. how then is it, that they admit and allow nature, soul, and living creature? even in the same manner as they do an oath, prayer, and sacrifice, and the adoration of the gods. thus they adore by word and mouth, only naming and feigning that which by their principles they totally take away and abolish. if now they call that which is born nature, and that which is engendered generation,--as those who are accustomed to call wood wood-work and the voices that accord and sound together symphony,--whence came it into his mind to object these words against empedocles? "why," says he, "do we tire ourselves in taking such care of ourselves, in desiring and longing after certain things, and shunning and avoiding others? for we neither are ourselves, nor do we live by making use of others." but be of good cheer, my dear little colotes, may one perhaps say to him: there is none who hinders you from taking care of yourself by teaching that the nature of colotes is nothing else but colotes himself, or who forbids you to make use of things (now things with you are pleasures) by showing that there is no nature of tarts and marchpanes, of sweet odors, or of venereal delights, but that there are tarts, marchpanes, perfumes, and women. for neither does the grammarian who says that the "strength of hercules" is hercules himself deny the being of hercules; nor do those who say that symphonies and roofings are but absolute derivations affirm that there are neither sounds nor timbers; since also there are some who, taking away the soul and intelligence, do not yet seem to take away either living or being intelligent. and when epicurus says that the nature of things is to be found in bodies and their place, do we so comprehend him as if he meant that nature were something else than the things which are, or as if he insinuated that it is merely the things which are, and nothing else?--as, to wit, he is wont to call voidness itself the nature of voidness, and the universe, by jupiter, the nature of the universe. and if any one should thus question him; what sayst thou, epicurus, that this is voidness, and that the nature of voidness? no, by jupiter, would he answer; but this transference of names is in use by law and custom. i grant it is. now what has empedocles done else, but taught that nature is nothing else save that which is born, and death no other thing but that which dies? but as the poets very often, forming as it were an image, say thus in figurative language, strife, tumult, noise, placed by some angry god, mischief, and malice there had their abode; ("iliad," xvii. 525.) so do some authors attribute generation and corruption to things that are contracted together and dissolved. but so far has he been from stirring and taking away that which is, or contradicting that which evidently appears, that he casts not so much as one single word out of the accustomed use; but taking away all figurative fraud that might hurt or endamage things, he again restored the ordinary and useful signification to words in these verses:- when from mixed elements we sometimes see a man produced, sometimes a beast, a tree, or bird, this birth and geniture we name; but death, when this so well compacted frame and juncture is dissolved. and yet i myself say that colotes, though he alleged these verses, did not understand that empedocles took not away men, beasts, trees, or birds, which he affirmed to be composed of the elements mixed together; and that, by teaching how much they are deceived who call this composition nature and life, and this dissolution unhappy destruction and miserable death, he did not abrogate the using of the customary expressions in this respect. and it seems to me, indeed, that empedocles did not aim in this place at the disturbing the common manner of expression, but that he really, as it has been said, had a controversy about generation from things that have no being, which some call nature. which he manifestly shows by these verses:- fools, and of little thought, we well may deem those, who so silly are as to esteem that what ne'er was may now engendered be, and that what is may perish utterly. for these are the words of one who cries loud enough to those which have ears, that he takes not away generation, but procreation from nothing; nor corruption, but total destruction that is, reduction to nothing. for to him who would not so savagely and foolishly but more gently calumniate, the following verses might give a colorable occasion of charging empedocles with the contrary, when he says:- no prudent man can e'er into his mind admit that, whilst men living here on earth (which only life they call) both fortunes find, they being have, but that before the birth they nothing were, nor shall be when once dead. for these are not the expressions of a man who denies those that are born to be, but rather of him who holds those to be that are not yet born or that are already dead. and colotes also does not altogether accuse him of this, but says that according to his opinion we shall never be sick, never wounded. but how is it possible, that he who affirms men to have being both before their life and after their death, and during their life to find both fortunes (or to be accompanied both by good and evil), should not leave them the power to suffer? who then are they, o colotes, that are endued with this privilege never to be wounded, never to be sick? even you yourselves, who are composed of atoms and voidness, neither of which, you say, has any sense. now there is no great hurt in this; but the worst is, you have nothing left that can cause you pleasure, seeing an atom is not capable to receive those things which are to effect it, and voidness cannot be affected by them. but because colotes would, immediately after democritus, seem to inter and bury parmenides, and i have passed over and a little postponed his defence, to bring in between them that of empedocles, as seeming to be more coherent and consequent to the first reprehensions, let us now return to parmenides. him, then, does colotes accuse of having broached and set abroad certain shameful and villanous sophistries; and yet by these his sophisms he has neither rendered friendship less honorable, nor voluptuousness or the desire of pleasures more audacious and unbridled. he has not taken from honesty its attractive property or its being venerable or recommendable of itself, nor has he disturbed the opinions we ought to have of the gods. and i do not see how, by saying that the all (or the universe) is one, he hinders or obstructs our living. for when epicurus himself says that the all is infinite, that it is neither engendered nor perishable, that it can neither increase nor be diminished, he speaks of the universe as of one only thing. and having in the beginning of his treatise concerning this matter said, that the nature of those things which have being consists of bodies and of vacuum, he makes a division (as it were) of one thing into two parts, one of which has in reality no subsistence, being, as you yourselves term it, impalpable, void, and incorporeal; so that by this means, even with you also, all comes to be one; unless you desire, in speaking of voidness, to use words void of sense, and to combat the ancients, as if you were fighting against a shadow. but these atomical bodies, you will say, are, according to the opinion of epicurus, infinite in number, and everything which appears to us is composed of them. see now, therefore, what principles of generation you suppose, infinity and voidness; one of which, to wit, voidness, is inactive, impassible, and incorporeal; the other, to wit, infinity, is disorderly, unreasonable, and unintelligible, dissolving and confounding itself, because it cannot for its multitude be contained, circumscribed, or limited. but parmenides has neither taken away fire, nor water, nor precipices, nor yet cities (as colotes says) which are inhabited as well in europe as in asia; since he has both constructed an order of the world, and mixing the elements, to wit, light and dark, does of them and by them arrange and finish all things that appear in the world. for he has written very largely of the earth, heaven, sun, moon, and stars, and has spoken of the generation of man; and being, as he was, an ancient author in physiology, and one who in writing sought to save his own and not to destroy another's doctrine, he has overlooked none of the essential things in nature. moreover, plato, and before him socrates himself, understood that in nature there is one part subject to opinion, and another subject to intelligence. as for that which is subject to opinion, it is always unconstant, wandering, and carried away with several passions and changes, liable to diminution and increase, and to be variously disposed to various men, and not always appearing after one manner even to the same individual. but as to the intelligible part, it is quite of another kind, constant, entire, and still engenerable, as himself says, always like to itself, and perdurable in its being. here colotes, sycophant-like, catching at his expressions and drawing the discourse from things to words, flatly affirms that parmenides in one word destroys the existence of all things by supposing ens (or that which is) to be one. but, on the contrary, he takes away neither the one nor the other part of nature; but rendering to each of them what belongs to it and is convenient for it, he places the intelligible in the idea of one and of "that which is," calling it ens because it is eternal and incorruptible, and one because it is always like itself and admits no diversity. and as for that part which is sensible, he places it in the rank of uncertain, disorderly, and always moving. of which two parts, we may see the distinct judgment:- one certain truth and sincere knowledge is, as regarding that which is intelligible, and always alike and of the same sort; the other does on men's opinions rest, which breed no true belief within our breast, because it is conversant in things which receive all sorts of changes, passions, and inequalities. now how he could have left sense and opinion, if he had not also left any sensible and opinable object, it is impossible for any man to say. but because to that which truly is it appertains to continue in its being, and because sensible things sometimes are, sometimes are not, continually passing from one being to another and perpetually changing their state, he thought they required some other name than that of entia, or things which always are. this speech therefore concerning ens (or that which is), that it should be but one, is not to take away the plurality of sensible things, but to show how they differ from that which is intelligible. which difference plato in his discussion of ideas more fully declaring, has thereby afforded colotes an opportunity of cavilling. therefore it seems not unfitting to me to take next into our consideration, as it were all in a train, what he has also said against him. but first let us contemplate a little the diligence--together with the manifold and profound knowledge--of this our philosopher, who says, that aristotle, xenocrates, theophrastus, and all the peripateties have followed these doctrines of plato. for in what corner of the uninhabitable world have you, o colotes, written your book, that, composing all these accusations against such personages, you never have lighted upon their works, nor have taken into your hands the books of aristotle concerning heaven and the soul, nor those of theophrastus against the naturalists, nor the zoroaster of heraclides, nor his books of hell, nor that of natural doubts and difficulties, nor the book of dicaearchus concerning the soul; in all which books they are in the highest degree contradictory and repugnant to plato about the principal and greatest points of natural philosophy? nay, strato himself, the very head and prince of the other peripatetics, agrees not in many things with aristotle, and holds opinions altogether contrary to plato, concerning motion, the understanding, the soul, and generation. in fine, he says that the world is not an animal, and that what is according to nature follows what is according to fortune; for that chance gave the beginning, and so every one of the natural effects was afterwards finished. now as to the ideas,--for which he quarrels with plato,--aristotle, by moving this matter at every turn, and alleging all manner of doubts concerning them, in his ethics, in his physics, and in his exoterical dialogues seems to some rather obstinately than philosophically to have disputed against these doctrines, as having proposed to himself the debasing and undervaluing of plato's philosophy; so far he was from following it. what an impudent rashness then is this, that having neither seen nor understood what these persons have written and what were their opinions, he should go and devise such things as they never imagined; and persuading himself that he reprehends and refutes others, he should produce a proof, written with his own hand, arguing and convincing himself of ignorance, licentiousness, and shameful impudence, in saying that those who contradict plato agree with him, and that those who oppose him follow him. plato, says he, writes that horses are in vain by us considered horses, and men men. and in which of plato's commentaries has he found this hidden? for as to us, we read in all his books, that horses are horses, that men are men, and that fire is by him esteemed fire, because he holds that every one of these things is sensible and subject to opinion. but this colotes, as if he were not a hair's breadth distance from wisdom, takes it to be one and the same thing to say, "man is not" and "man is a non ens." now to plato there seems to be a wonderful great difference between not being at all and being a non ens; because the first imports an annihilation and abolishment of all substance, and the other shows the diversity there is between that which is participated and that which participates. which diversity those who came after distinguished only into the difference of genus and species, and certain common and proper qualities or accidents, as they are called, but ascended no higher, falling into more logical doubts and difficulties. now there is the same proportion between that which is participated and that which participates, as there is between the cause and the matter, the original and the image, the faculty and the result. wherein that which is by itself and always the same principally differs from that which is by another and never remains in one and the same manner; because the one never was nor ever shall be non-existent, and is therefore totally and essentially an ens; but to the other that very being, which it has not of itself but happens to take by participation from another, does not remain firm and constant, but it goes out of it by its imbecility,--the matter always gliding and sliding about the form, and receiving several functions and changes in the image of the substance, so that it is continually moving and shaking. as therefore he who says that the image of plato is not plato takes not away the sense and substance of the image, but shows the difference of that which is of itself from that which is only in regard to some other, so neither do they take away the nature, use, or sense of men, who affirm that every one of us, by participating in a certain common substratum, that is, in the idea, is become the image of that which afforded the likeness for our generation. for neither does he who says that a red-hot iron is not fire, or that the moon is not the sun, but, as parmenides has it, a torch which round the earth by night does bear about a borrowed light, take away therefore the use of iron, or the nature of the moon. but if he should deny it to be a body, or affirm that it is not illuminated, he would then contradict the senses, as one who admitted neither body, animal, generation, nor sense. but he who by his opinion imagines that these things subsist only by participation, and reflects how far remote and distant they are from that which always is and which communicates to them their being, does not reject the sensible, but affirms that the intelligible is; nor does he take away and abolish the results which are wrought and appear in us; but he shows to those who follow him that there are other things, firmer and more stable than these in respect of their essence, because they are neither engendered, nor perish, nor suffer anything; and he teaches them, more purely touching the difference, to express it by names, calling these [greek omitted] or [greek omitted] (things that have being), and those [greek omitted] or fientia (things engendered). and the same also usually befalls the moderns; for they deprive many--and those great things--of the appellation of ens or being; such as are voidness, time, place, and simply the entire genus of things spoken, in which are comprised all things true. for these things, they say, are not entia but some things; and they perpetually treat of them in their lives and in their philosophy, as of things having subsistence and existence. but i would willingly ask this our fault-finder, whether themselves do not in their affairs perceive this difference, by which some things are permanent and immutable in their substances,--as they say of their atoms, that they are at all times and continually after one and the same manner, because of their impassibility and hardness,--but that all compound things are fluxible, changeable, generated, and perishing; forasmuch as infinite images are always departing and going from them, and infinite others as it is probable, repair to them from the ambient air, filling up what was diminished from the mass, which is much diversified and transvasated, as it were, by this change, since those atoms which are in the very bottom of the said mass can never cease stirring and reciprocally beating upon one another; as they themselves affirm. there is then in things such a diversity of substance. but epicurus is in this wiser and more learned than plato, that he calls them all equally entia,--to wit, the impalable voidness, the solid and resisting body, the principles, and the things composed of them,--and thinks that the eternal participates of the common substance with that which is generated, the immortal with the corruptible, and the natures that are impassible, perdurable, unchangeable, and that can never fall from their being, with those which have their essence in suffering and changing, and can never continue in one and the same state. but though plato had with all the justness imaginable deserved to be condemned for having offended in this, yet should he have been sentenced by these gentlemen, who use greek more elegantly and discourse more correctly than he, only as having confounded the terms, and not as having taken away the things and driven life from us, because he named them fientia (or things engendered), and not entia (things that have being), as these men do. but because we have passed over socrates, who should have come next after parmenides, we must now turn back our discourse to him. him therefore has colotes begun at the very first to remove, as the common proverb has it, from the sacred line; and having mentioned how chaerephon brought from delphi an oracle, well known to us all, concerning socrates, he says thus: "now as to this narration of chaerephon's, because it is odious and entirely sophistical, we will overpass it." plato, then, that we may say nothing of others, is also odious, who has committed it to writing; and the lacedaemonians are yet more odious, who keep the oracle of lycurgus amongst their most ancient and most authentic inscriptions. the oracle also of themistocles, by which he persuaded the athenians to quit their town, and in a naval fight defeated the barbarous xerxes, was a sophistical fiction. odious also were all the ancient legislators and founders of greece who established the most part of their temples, sacrifices, and solemn festivals by the answer of the pythian oracle. but if the oracle brought from delphi concerning socrates, a man ravished with a divine zeal to virtue, by which he is styled and declared wise, is odious, fictitious, and sophistical, by what name shall we call your cries, noises, and shouts, your applauses, adorations and canonizations, with which you extol and celebrate him who incites and exhorts you to frequent and continual pleasures? for thus has he written in his epistle to anaxarchus: "i for my part incite and call you to continual pleasures, and not to vain and empty virtues, which have nothing but turbulent hopes of uncertain fruits." and yet metrodorus, writing to timarchus, says: "let us do some extraordinarily excellent thing, not suffering ourselves to be plunged in reciprocal affections, but retiring from this low and terrestrial life, and elevating ourselves to the truly holy and divinely revealed ceremonies and mysteries of epicurus." and even colotes himself, hearing one day epicurus discoursing of natural things, fell suddenly at his feet and embraced his knees, as epicurus himself, glorying in it, thus writes: "for as if you had adored what we were then saying, you were suddenly taken with a desire, proceeding not from any natural cause, to come to us, prostrate yourself on the ground, embrace our knees, and use all those gestures to us which are ordinarily practised by those who adore and pray to the gods. so that you made us also," says he, "reciprocally sanctify and adore you." those, by jupiter, well deserve to be pardoned, who say, they would willingly give any money for a picture in which should be presented to the life this fine story of one lying prostrate at the knees and embracing the legs of another, who mutually again adores him and makes his devout prayers to him. nevertheless this devout service, how well soever it was ordered and composed by colotes, received not the condign fruit he expected; for he was not declared wise; but it was only said to him: go they ways, and walk immortal; and understand that we also are in like manner immortal. these men, knowing well in their consciences that they have used such foolish speeches, have had such motions, and such passions, dare nevertheless call others odious. and colotes, having shown us these fine first-fruits and wise positions touching the natural senses,--that we eat meat, and not hay or forage; and that when rivers are deep and great, we pass them in boats, but when shallow and easily fordable, on foot,--cries out, "you use vain and arrogant speeches, o socrates; you say one thing to those who come to discourse with you, and practise another." now i would fain know what these vain and arrogant speeches of socrates were, since he ordinarily said that he knew nothing, that he was always learning, and that he went inquiring and searching after the truth. but if, o colotes, you had happened on such expressions of socrates as are those which epicurus writ to idomeneus, "send me then the first-fruits for the entertainment of our sacred body, for ourself and for our children: for so it comes upon me to speak;" what more arrogant and insolent words could you have used? and yet that socrates spake otherwise than he lived, you have wonderful proofs in his gests at delium, at potidaea, in his behavior during the time of the thirty tyrants, towards archelaus, towards the people of athens, in his poverty, and in his death. for are not these things beseeming and answerable to the doctrine of socrates? they would indeed, good sir, have been indubitable testimonies to show that he acted otherwise than he taught, if, having proposed pleasure for the end of life, he had led such a life as this. thus much for the calumnies he has uttered against socrates. colotes besides perceives not that he is himself found guilty of the same offences in regard to theory and practice which he objects against socrates. for this is one of the sentences and propositions of epicurus, that none but the wise man ought irrevocably and unchangeably to be persuaded of anything. since then colotes, even after those adorations he performed to epicurus, became not one of the sages, let him first make these questions and interrogatories his own: how is it that being hungry he eats meat and not hay, and that he puts a robe about his body and not about a pillar, since he is not indubitably persuaded either that a robe is a robe or that meat is meat? but if he not only does these things, but also passes not over rivers, when they are great and high, on foot, and flies from wolves and serpents, not being irrevocably persuaded that any of these things is such as it seems, but yet doing everything according to what appears to him; so likewise the opinion of socrates concerning the senses was no obstacle to him, but that he might in like manner make use of things as they appeared to him. for it is not likely that bread appeared bread and hay hay to colotes, because he had read those holy rules of epicurus which came down from heaven, while socrates on account of his vanity imagined that hay was bread and bread hay. for these wise men use better opinions and reasons than we; but to have sense, and to receive an impression from objects as they appear, is common as well to the ignorant as to the wise, as proceeding from causes where there needs not the discourse of reason. and the proposition which affirms that the natural senses are not perfect, nor certain enough to cause an entire belief, hinders not that everything may appear to us; but leaving us to make use of our senses in our actions according to that which appears, it permits us not so to give credit to them as if they were exactly true and without error. for it is sufficient that in what is necessary and commodious for use there is nothing better. but as for the science and knowledge which the soul of a philosopher desires to have concerning everything, the senses have it not. but as to this, colotes will farther give us occasion to speak of it hereafter, for he brings this objection against several others. furthermore, whereas he profusely derides and despises socrates for asking what man is, and in a youthful bravery (as he terms it) affirming that he was ignorant of it, it is manifest that he himself, who scoffs at it, never so much as thought of this matter; but heraclitus on the contrary, as having done some great and worthy thing, said, i have been seeking myself. and of the sentences that were written in apollo's temple at delphi, the most excellent and most divine seems to have been this, know thyself. and this it was which gave socrates an occasion and beginning of doubting and inquiring into it, as aristotle says in his platonics. and yet this appears to colotes ridiculous and fit to be scoffed at. and i wonder that he derides not also his master himself, who does as much whenever he writes concerning the substance of the soul and the creation of man. for if that which is compounded of both, as they themselves hold,--of the body, to wit, and the soul,--is man, he who searches into the nature of the soul consequently also searches into the nature of man, beginning from his chiefest principle. now that the soul is very difficult to be comprehended by reason, and altogether incomprehensible by the exterior senses, let us not learn from socrates, who is a vainglorious and sophistical disputer, but let us take it from these wise men, who, having forged and framed the substance of the soul of somewhat hot, spiritual, and aerial, as far as to the faculties of the flesh, by which she gives heat, softness and strength to the body, proceed not to that which is the principal, but give over faint and tired by the way. for that by which she judges, remembers, loves, hates,--in a word, that which is prudent and rational, is,--say they, made afterwards of i know not what nameless quality. now we well know, that this nameless thing is a confession of their shameful ignorance, whilst they pretend they cannot name what they are not able to understand or comprehend. but let this, as they say, be pardoned them. for it seems not to be a light and easy matter, which every one can at the first attempt find out and attain to, but has retired itself to the bottom of some very remote place, and there lies obscurely concealed. so that there is not, amongst so many words and terms as are in use, any one that can explain or show it. socrates therefore was not a fool or blockhead for seeking and searching what himself was; but they are rather to be thought shallow coxcombs, who inquire after any other thing before this, the knowledge of which is so necessary and so hard to find. for how could he expect to gain the knowledge of other things, who has not been able to comprehend the principal element even of himself? but granting a little to colotes, that there is nothing so vain, useless, and odious as the seeking into one's self, let us ask him, what confession of human life is in this, and how it is that a man cannot continue to live, when he comes once thus to reason and discourse in himself: "go to now, what am i? am i a composition, made up of soul and body; or rather a soul, serving itself and making use of the body, as an horseman using his horse is not a subject composed of horse and man? or is every one of us the principal part of the soul, by which we understand, infer, and act; and are all the other parts, both of soul and body, only organs and utensils of this power? or, to conclude, is there no proper substance of the soul at all apart, but is only the temperature and complexion of the body so disposed, that it has force and power to understand and live?" but socrates does not by these questions overthrow human life, since all natural philosophers treat of the same matter. but those perhaps are the monstrous questions and inquiries that turn everything upside down, which are in phaedrus, (plato, "phaedrus," p. 230 a.) where he says, that every one ought to examine and consider himself, whether he is a savage beast, more cautelous, outrageous, and furious than ever was the monster typhon; or on the contrary, an animal more mild and gentle, partaking by nature of a certain divine portion, and such as is free from pride. now by these discourses and reasonings he overturns not the life of man, but drives from it presumption and arrogance, and those haughty and extravagant opinions and conceits he has of himself. for this is that monster typhon, which your teacher and master has made to be so great in you by his warring against the gods and divine men. having done with socrates and plato, he next attacks stilpo. now as for those his true doctrines and good discourses, by which he managed and governed himself, his country, his friends, and such kings and princes as loved him and esteemed him, he has not written a word; nor yet what prudence and magnanimity was in his heart, accompanied with meekness, moderation, and modesty. but having made mention of one of those little sentences he was wont in mirth and raillery to object against the sophisters, he does, without alleging any reason against it or solving the subtlety of the objection, stir up a terrible tragedy against stilpo, saying that the life of man is subverted by him, inasmuch as he affirms that one thing cannot be predicated of another. "for how," says he, "shall we live, if we cannot style a man good, nor a man a captain, but must separately name a man a man, good good, and a captain a captain; nor can say ten thousand horsemen, or a fortified town, but only call horsemen horsemen, and ten thousand ten thousand, and so of the rest?" now what man ever was there that lived the worse for this? or who is there that, hearing this discourse, does not immediately perceive and understand it to be the speech of a man who rallies gallantly, and proposes to others this logical question for the exercise of their wits? it is not, o colotes, a great and dangerous scandal not to call any man good, or not to say ten thousand horsemen; but not to call god god, and not to believe him to be god,--as you and the rest do, who will not confess that there is a jupiter presiding over generation, or a ceres giving laws, or a neptune nourishing the plants,--it is this separation of names that is pernicious, and fills our life with audaciousness and an atheistical contempt of the gods. when you pluck from the gods the names and appellations that are tied to them, you abolish also the sacrifices, mysteries, processions, and feasts. for to whom shall we offer the sacrifices preceding the tilling of the ground? to whom those for the obtaining of preservation? how shall we celebrate the phosphoria or torch-festivals, the bacchanals, and the ceremonies that go before marriage, if we admit neither bacchantes, gods of light, gods who protect the sown field, nor preservers of the state? for this it is that touches the principal and greatest points, being an error in things,--not in words, in the structure of propositions, or use of terms. now if these are the things that disturb and subvert human life, who are there that more offend in speech than you? for you take utterly away the whole category of namable things, which constitute the substance of language; and leave only words and their accidental objects, while you take away in the meantime the things particularly signfied by them, by which are wrought disciplines, doctrines, preconceptions, intelligences, inclination, and assent, which you hold to be nothing at all. but as for stilpo, thus his reasoning proceeds. "if of a man we predicate good, and of an horse running, the predicate or thing predicated is not the same with the subject or that of which it is predicated, but the essential definition of man is one, and of good another. and again, to be a horse differs from to be running. for being asked the definition of the one and of the other, we do not give the same for them both; and therefore those err who predicate the one of the other. for if good is the same with man, and to run the same with a horse, how is good affirmed also of food and medicine, and again (by jupiter) to run of a lion and a dog? but if the predicate is different, then we do not rightly say that a man is good, and a horse runs." now if stilpo is in this exorbitant and grossly mistaken, not admitting any copulation of such things as are in the subject, or affirmed of the subject, with the subject itself; but holding that every one of them, if it is not absolutely one and the same thing with that to which it happens or of which it is spoken, ought not to be spoken or affirmed of it,--no, not even as an accident; it is nevertheless manifest, that he was only offended with some words, and opposed the usual and accustomed manner of speaking, and not that he overthrew man's life, and turned his affairs upside down. colotes, then, having got rid of the old philosophers, turns to those of his own time, but without naming any of them; though he would have done better either to have reproved by name these moderns, as he did the ancients, or else to have named neither of them. but he who has so often employed his pen against socrates, plato, and parmenides, evidently demonstrates that it is through cowardice he dares not attack the living, and not for any modesty or reverence, of which he showed not the least sign to those who were far more excellent than these. but his meaning is, as i suspect, to assault the cyrenaics first, and afterwards the academics, who are followers of arcesilaus. for it was these who doubted of all things; but those, placing the passions and imaginations in themselves, were of opinion that the belief proceeding from them is not sufficient for the assuring and affirming of things but, as if it were in the siege of a town, abandoning what is without, they have shut themselves up in the passions, using only it seems, and not asserting it is, of things without. and therefore they cannot, as colotes says of them, live or have the use of things. and then speaking comically of them, he adds: "these deny that there is a man, a horse, a wall; but say that they themselves (as it were) become walls, horses, men," or "take on the images of walls, horses, or men." in which he first maliciously abuses the terms, as caluminators are usually wont to do. for though these things follow from the sayings of the cyrenaics, yet he ought to have declared the fact as they themselves teach it. for they affirm that things then become sweet, bitter, lightsome, or dark, when each thing has in itself the natural unobstructed operation of one of these impressions. but if honey is said to be sweet, an olive-branch bitter, hail cold, wine hot, and the nocturnal air dark, there are many beasts, things, and men that testify the contrary. for some have an aversion for honey, others feed on the branches of the olive-tree; some are scorched by hail, others cooled with wine; and there are some whose sight is dim in the sun but who see well by night. wherefore opinion, containing itself within these sensations, remains safe and free from error; but when it goes forth and attempts to be curious in judging and pronouncing concerning exterior things, it often deceives itself, and opposes others, who from the same objects receive contrary sensations and different imaginations. and colotes seems properly to resemble those young children who are but beginning to learn their letters. for, being accustomed to learn them where they see them in their own horn-books and primers, when they see them written anywhere else, they doubt and are troubled; so those very discourses, which he praises and approves in the writings of epicurus, he neither understands nor knows again, when they are spoken by others. for those who say that the sense is truly informed and moulded when there is presented one image round and another broken, but nevertheless permit us not to pronounce that the tower is round and the oar broken, confirm their own sensations and imaginations, but they will not acknowledge and confess that the things without are so affected. but as the cyrenaics must say that they are imprinted with the figure of a horse or of a wall, but refuse to speak of the horse or the wall; so also it is necessary to say that the sight is imprinted with a figure round or with three unequal sides, and not that the tower is in that manner triangular or round. for the image by which the sight is affected is broken; but the oar whence that image proceeds is not broken. since, then, there is a difference between the sensation and the external subject, the belief must either remain in the sensation, or else--if it maintains the being in addition to the appearing--be reproved and convinced of untruth. and whereas they cry out and are offended in behalf of the sense, because the cyrenaics say not that the thing without is hot, but that the effect made on the sense is such; is it not the same with what is said touching the taste, when they say that the thing without is not sweet, but that some function and motion about the sense is such? and for him who says that he has received the apprehension of an human form, but perceives not whether it is a man, whence has he taken occasion so to say? is it not from those who affirm that they receive an apprehension of a bowed figure and form, but that the sight pronounces not that the thing which was seen is bowed or round, but that a certain image of it is such? yes, by jupiter, will some one say; but i, going near the tower or touching the oar, will pronounce and affirm that the one is straight and the other has many angles and faces; but he, when he comes near it, will confess that it seems and appears so to him, and no more. yes, certainly, good sir, and more than this, when he sees and observes the consequence, that every imagination is equally worthy of belief for itself, and none for another; but that they are all in like condition. but this your opinion is quite lost, that all the imaginations are true and none false or to be disbelieved, if you think that these ought to pronounce positively of that which is without, but those you credit no farther than that they are so affected. for if they are in equal condition as to their being believed, when they are near or when they are far off, it is just that either upon all of them, or else not upon these, should follow the judgment pronouncing that a thing is. but if there is a difference in the being affected between those that are near and those that are far off, it is then false that one sense and imagination is not more express and evident than another. therefore those they call attestations and counter-attestations are nothing to the sense, but are concerned only with opinion. so, if they would have us following these to pronounce concerning exterior things, making being a judgment of opinion, and what appears an affection of sense, they transfer the judicature from which is totally true to that which often fails. but how full of trouble and contradictions in respect of one another these things are, what need is there to say at present? but the reputation of arcesilaus, who was the best beloved and most esteemed of all the philosophers in his time, seems to have been no small eyesore to epicurus; who says of him that delivering nothing peculiar to himself or of his own invention, he imprinted in illiterate men the opinion and esteem of his being very knowing and learned. now arcesilaus was so far from desiring any glory by being a bringer-in of new opinions, and from arrogating to himself those of the ancients, that the sophisters of that time blamed him for attributing to socrates, plato, parmenides, and heraclitus the doctrines concerning the retention of assent, and the incomprehensibility of things; having no need so to do, but only that he might strengthen them and render them recommendable by ascribing them such illustrious personages. for this, therefore, thanks to colotes, and to every one who declares that the academic doctrine was from a higher times derived to arcesilaus. now as for retention of assent and the doubting of all things, not even those who have much labored in the manner, and strained themselves to compose great books and large treatises concerning it, were ever able to stir it; but bringing at last out of the stoa itself the cessation from all actions, as the gorgon to frighten away the objections that came against them, they were at last quite tired and gave over. for they could not, what attempts and stirs soever they made, obtain so much from the instinct by which the appetite is moved to act, as to suffer itself to be called an assent, or to acknowledge sense for the origin and principle of its propension, but it appeared of its own accord to present itself to act, as having no need to be joined with anything else. for against such adversaries the combat and dispute is lawful and just. and such words as you have spoke, the like you may expect to hear. ("iliad," xx. 250.) for to speak to colotes of instinct and consent is, i suppose, all one as to play on the harp before an ass. but to those who can give ear and conceive, it is said that there are in the soul three sorts of motions,--the imaginative, the appetitive, and the consenting. as to the imaginative or the apprehension, it cannot be taken away, though one would. for one cannot, when things approach, avoid being informed and (as it were) moulded by them, and receiving an impression from them. the appetite, being stirred up by the imaginative, effectually moves man to that which is proper and agreeable to his nature, just as when there is made a propension and inclination in the principal and reasonable part. now those who withhold their assent and doubt of all things take not away this, but make use of the appetition or instinct naturally conducting every man to that which seems convenient for him. what, then, is the only thing that they shun? that in which is bred falsehood and deceit,--that is, opining, and haste in giving consent,--which is a yielding through weakness to that which appears, and has not any true utility. for action stands in need of two things, to wit, the apprehension or imagination of what is agreeable to nature, and the instinct or appetition driving to that which is so imagined; of which, neither the one nor the other is repugnant to the retention of assent. for reason withdraws us from opinion, and not from appetition or imagination. when, therefore, that which is delectable seems to us to be proper for us, there is no need of opinion to move and carry us to it, but appetition immediately exerts itself, which is nothing else but the motion and inclination of the soul. it is their own axiom, that a man must only have sense and be flesh and blood and pleasure will appear to be good. wherefore also it will seem good to him who withholds his assent. for he also participates of sense, and is made of flesh and blood, and as soon as he has conceived an imagination of good, desires it and does all things that it may not escape from him; but as much as possibly he can, he will keep himself with that which is agreeable to his nature, being drawn by natural and not by geometrical constraints. for these goodly, gentle, and tickling motions of the flesh are, without any teacher, attractive enough of themselves--even as these men forget not to say--to draw even him who will not in the least acknowledge and confess that he is softened and rendered pliable by them. "but how comes it to pass," perhaps you will say, "that he who is thus doubtful and withholds his assent hastens not away to the mountain, instead of going to the bath? or that, rising up to go forth into the market-place, he runs not his head against the wall, but takes his way directly to the door?" do you ask this, who hold all the senses to be infallible, and the apprehensions of the imagination certain and true? it is because the bath appears to him not a mountain, but a bath; and the door seems not a wall, but a door; and the same is to be said of every other thing. for the doctrine of retention does not pervert the sense, nor by absurd passions and motions work in it an alteration disturbing the imaginative faculty; but it only takes away opinions, and for the rest, makes use of other things according to their nature. but it is impossible, you will say, not to consent to things that are evident; for to deny such things as are believed is more absurd than neither to deny nor affirm. who then are they that call in question things believed, and contend against things that are evident? they who overthrow and take away divination, who say that there is not any government of divine providence, who deny the sun and the moon--to whom all men offer sacrifices and whom they honor and adore--to be animated. and do not you take away that which is apparent to all the world, that the young are contained in the nature of their parents? do you not, contrary to the sense of all men, affirm that there is no medium between pleasure and pain, saying that not to be in pain is to be in the fruition of pleasure, that not to do is to suffer, and that not to rejoice is to be grieved? but to let pass all the rest, what is more evident and more generally believed by all men, than that those who are seized with melancholy distempers, and whose brain is troubled and whose wits are distracted, do, when the fit is on them and their understanding altered and transported, imagine that they see and hear things which they neither see nor hear? whence they frequently cry out:- women in black arrayed bear in their hands, to burn mine eyes, torches and fiery brands. and again:- see, in her arms she holds my mother dear. (euripides, "iphigenia in tauris," 289.) these, and many other illusions more strange and tragical than these,--resembling those mormos and bugbears which they themselves laugh at and deride, as they are described by empedocles to be, "with sinuous feet and undeveloped hands, bodied like ox and faced like man,"--with certain other prodigious and unnatural phantoms, these men have gathered together out of dreams and the alienations of distracted minds, and affirm that none of them is a deception of the sight, a falsity, or inconsistence; but that all these imaginations are true, being bodies and figures that come from the ambient air. what thing then is there so impossible in nature as to be doubted of, if it is possible to believe such reveries as these? for these men, supposing that such things as never any mask-maker, potter, designer of wonderful images, or skilful and all-daring painter durst join together, to deceive or make sport for the beholders, are seriously and in good earnest existent,--nay, which is more, affirming that, if they are not really so, all firmness of belief, all certainty of judgment and truth, is forever gone,--do by these their suppositions and affirmations cast all things into obscurity, and bring fears into our judgments, and suspicions into our actions,--if the things which we apprehend, do, are familiarly acquainted with, and have at hand are grounded on the same imagination and belief with these furious, absurd, and extravagant fancies. for the equality which they suppose to be in all apprehensions rather derogates from the credit of such as are usual and rational, than adds any belief to those that are unusual and repugnant to reason. wherefore we know many philosophers who would rather and more willingly grant that no imagination is true than that all are so, and that would rather simply disbelieve all the men they never had conversed with, all the things they had not experimented, and all the speeches they had not heard with their own ears, than persuade themselves that any one of these imaginations, conceived by these frantic, fanatical, and dreaming persons, is true. since then there are some imaginations which may, and others which may not be rejected, it is lawful for us to retain our assent concerning them, though there were no other cause but this discordance, which is sufficient to work in us a suspicion of things, as having nothing certain and assured, but being altogether full of obscurity and perturbation. for in the disputes about the infinity of worlds and the nature of atoms and individuums and their inclinations, although they trouble and disturb very many, there is yet this comfort, that none of all these things that are in question is near us, but rather every one of them is far remote from sense. but as to this diffidence, perplexity, and ignorance concerning sensible things and imaginations, found even in our eyes, our ears, and our hands, what opinion does it not shock? what consent does it not turn upside down? for if men neither drunk, intoxicated, nor otherwise disturbed in their senses, but sober, sound in mind, and professedly writing of the truth and of the canons and rules by which to judge it, do in the most evident passions and motions of the senses set down either that which has no existence for true, or that which is existent for false, it is not strange that a man should be silent about all things, but rather that he assent to anything; nor is it incredible that he should have no judgment about things which appear, but rather that he should have contrary judgments. for it is less to be wondered, that a man should neither affirm the one nor the other but keep himself in a mean between two opposite things, than that he should set down things repugnant and contrary to one another. for he that neither affirms nor denies, but keeps himself quiet, is less repugnant to him who affirms an opinion than he who denies it, and to him who denies an opinion than he who affirms it. now if it is possible to withhold one's assent concerning these things, it is not impossible also concerning others, at least according to your opinion, who say that one sense does not exceed another, nor one imagination another. the doctrine then of retaining the assent is not, as colotes thinks, a fable or an invention of rash and light-headed young men who please themselves in babbling and prating; but a certain habit and disposition of men who desire to keep themselves from falling into error, not leaving the judgment at a venture to such suspected and inconstant senses, nor suffering themselves to be deceived by those who hold that in doubtful matters things which do not appear to the senses are credible and ought to be believed, when they see so great obscurity and uncertainty in things which do appear. but the infinity you assert is a fable, and so indeed are the images you dream of: and he breeds in young men rashness and self-conceitedness who writ of pythocles, not yet eighteen years of age, that there was not in all greece a better or more excellent nature, that he admirably well expressed his convictions, and that he was in other respects behaved like a women,--praying that all these extraordinary endowments of the young man might not work him hatred and envy. but these are sophists and arrogant, who write so impudently and proudly against great and excellent personages. i confess indeed, that plato, aristotle, theophrastus and democritus contradicted those who went before them; but never durst any man besides colotes set forth with such an insolent title as this against all at once. whence it comes to pass that, like to such as have offended some divinity, confessing his fault, he says thus towards the end of his book: "those who have established laws and ordinances and instituted monarchies and other governments in towns and cities, have placed human life in great repose and security and delivered it from many troubles; and if any one should go about to take this away, we should lead the life of savage beasts, and should be every one ready to eat up one another as we meet." for these are the very words of colotes, though neither justly nor truly spoken. for if any one, taking away the laws, should leave us nevertheless the doctrines of parmenides, socrates, plato, and heraclitus, we should be far from mutually devouring one another and leading the life of beasts. for we should fear dishonest things, and should for honesty alone venerate justice, the gods our superiors, and magistrates, believing that we have spirits and daemons who are the guardians and superintendents of human life, esteeming all the gold that is upon and within the earth not to be equivalent to virtue; and doing that willingly by reason, as xenocrates says, which we now do by force and through fear of the law. when then will our life become savage, uncivilized, and bestial? when, the laws being taken away, there shall be left doctrines inciting men to pleasure; when the world shall bethought not to be ruled and governed by divine providence; when those men shall be esteemed wise who spit at honesty if it is not joined with pleasure; and when such discourses and sentences as these shall be scoffed at and derided:- for justice has an eye which all things sees; and again:- god near us stands, and views whate'er we do; and once more: "god, as antiquity has delivered to holding the beginning, middle, and end of the universe, makes a direct line, walking according to nature. after him follows justice, a punisher of those who have been deficient in their duties by transgressing the divine law." for they who contemn these things as if they were fables, and think that the sovereign good of man consists about the belly, and in those other passages by which pleasure is admitted, are such as stand in need of the law, and fear, and stripes, and some king, prince, or magistrate, having in his hand the sword of justice; to the end that they may not devour their neighbors through their gluttony, rendered confident by their atheistical impiety. for this is the life of brutes, because brute beasts know nothing better nor more honest than pleasure, understand not the justice of the gods, nor revere the beauty of virtue; but if nature has bestowed on them any point of courage, subtlety, or activity, they make use of it for the satisfaction of their fleshly pleasure and the accomplishment of their lusts. and the sapient metrodorus believes that this should be so, for he says: "all the fine, subtle, and ingenious inventions of the soul have been found out for the pleasure and delight of the flesh, or for the hopes of attaining to it and enjoying it, and every act which tends not to this end is vain and unprofitable." the laws being by such discourses and philosophical reasons as these taken away, there wants nothing to a beast-like life but lions' paws, wolves' teeth, oxen's paunches, and camels' necks; and these passions and doctrines do the beasts themselves, for want of speech and letters, express by their bellowings, neighings, and brayings, all their voice being for their belly and the pleasure of their flesh, which they embrace and rejoice in either present or future; unless it be perhaps some animal which naturally takes delight in chattering and garrulity. no sufficient praise therefore or equivalent to their deserts can be given those who, for the restraining of such bestial passions, have set down laws, established policy and government of state, instituted magistrates and ordained good and wholesome laws. but who are they that utterly confound and abolish this? are they not those who withdraw themselves and their followers from all part in the government? are they not those who say that the garland of tranquillity and a reposed life are far more valuable than all the kingdoms and principalities in the world? are they not those who declare that reigning and being a king is a mistaking the path and straying from the right way of felicity? and they write in express terms: "we are to treat how a man may best keep and preserve the end of nature, and how he may from the very beginning avoid entering of his own free will and voluntarily upon offices of magistracy, and government over the people." and yet again, these other words are theirs: "there is no need at all that a man should tire out his mind and body to preserve the greeks, and to obtain from them a crown of wisdom; but to eat and drink well, o timocrates, without prejudicing, but rather pleasing the flesh." and yet in the constitution of laws and policy, which colotes so much praises, the first and most important article is the belief and persuasion of the gods. wherefore also lycurgus heretofore consecrated the lacedaemonians, numa the romans, the ancient ion the athenians, and deucalion universally all the greeks, through prayers, oaths, oracles, and omens, making them devout and affectionate to the gods by means of hopes and fears at once. and if you will take the pains to travel through the world, you may find towns and cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without houses, without wealth, without money, without theatres and places of exercise; but there was never seen nor shall be seen by man any city without temples and gods, or without making use of prayers, oaths, auguries, and sacrifices for the obtaining of blessings and benefits, and the averting of curses and calamities. nay, i am of opinion, that a city might sooner be built without any ground to fix it on, than a commonweal be constituted altogether void of any religion and opinion of the gods,--or being constituted, be preserved. but this, which is the foundation and ground of all laws, do these men, not going circularly about, nor secretly and by enigmatical speeches, but attacking it with the first of their most principal opinions directly subvert and overthrow; and then afterwards, as if they were haunted by the furies, they come and confess that they have grievously offended in thus taking away the laws, and confounding the ordinances of justice and policy, that they may not be capable of pardon. for to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human; but to impute to others the errors and offences they commit themselves, how can any one declare what it is, if he forbears to give it the name it deserves? for if, in writing against antidorus or bion the sophister, he had made mention of laws, policy, order, and justice, might not either of them have said to him, as electra did to her mad brother orestes:- lie still at ease, poor wretch; keep in thy bed, (euripides, "orestes," 258.) and there cherish thy bit of body, leaving those to expostulate and find fault with me who have themselves lived the life of a citizen and householder? now such are all those whom colotes has reviled and railed at in his book. amongst whom, democritus in his writings advises and exhorts to the learning of the science of politics, as being the greatest of all, and to the accustoming one's self to bear fatigues, by which men attain to great wealth and honor. and as for parmenides, he beautified and adorned his native country with most excellent laws which he there established, so that even to this day the officers every year, when they enter first on the exercise of their charges, are obliged to swear that they will observe the laws and ordinances of parmenides. empedocles brought to justice some of the principal of his city, and caused them to be condemned for their insolent behavior and embezzling of the public treasure, and also delivered his country from sterility and the plague--to which calamities it was before subject--by immuring and stopping up the holes of certain mountains, whence there issued an hot south wind, which overspread all the plain country and blasted it. and socrates, after he was condemned, when his friends offered him, if he pleased, an opportunity of making his escape, absolutely refused to make use of it, that he might maintain the authority of the laws, choosing rather to die unjustly than to save himself by disobeying the laws of his country. melissus, being captain general of his country, vanquished the athenians in a battle at sea. plato left in his writings excellent discourses concerning the laws, government, and policy of a commonweal; and yet he imprinted much better in the hearts and minds of his disciples and familiars, which caused sicily to be freed by dion, and thrace to be set at liberty by pytho and heraclides, who slew cotys. chabrias also and phocion, those two great generals of the athenians, came out of the academy. as for epicurus, he indeed sent certain persons into asia to chide timocrates, and caused him to be removed out of the king's palace, because he had offended his brother metrodorus; and this is written in their own books. but plato sent of his disciples and friends, aristonymus to the arcadians, to set in order their commonweal, phormio to the eleans, and menedemus to the pyrrhaeans. eudoxus gave laws to the cnidians, and aristotle to the stagirites, who were both of them the intimates of plato. and alexander the great demanded of xenocrates rules and precepts for reigning well. and he who was sent to the same alexander by the grecians dwelling in asia, and who most of all inflamed and stimulated him to embrace and undertake the war against the barbarian king of persia, was delius the ephesian, one of plato's familiars. zeno, the disciple of parmenides, having attempted to kill the tyrant demylus, and failing in his design, maintained the doctrine of parmenides, like pure and fine gold tried in the fire, that there is nothing which a magnanimous man ought to dread but dishonor, and that there are none but children and women, or effeminate and women-hearted men, who fear pain. for, having with his own teeth bitten off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant's face. but out of the school of epicurus, and from among those who follow his doctrine, i will not ask what tyrant-killer has proceeded, nor yet what man valiant and victorious in feats of arms, what lawgiver, what prince, what counsellor, or what governor of the people; neither will i demand, who of them has been tormented or has died for supporting right and justice. but which of all these sages has for the benefit and service of his country undertaken so much as one voyage at sea, gone of an embassy, or expended a sum of money? what record is there extant of one civil action in matter of government, performed by any of you? and yet, because metrodorus went down one day from the city as far as the haven of piraeus, taking a journey of forty stadia to assist mithres a syrian, one of the king of persia's court who had been arrested and taken prisoner, he writ of it to every one and in all his letters, epicurus also highly magnifying and extolling this wonderful voyage. what value then, think you, would they have put upon it, if they had done such an act as aristotle did, who procured the restoration and rebuilding of stagira, the town of his nativity, after it had been destroyed by king philip? or as theophrastus, who twice delivered his city, when possessed and held by tyrants? would not the river nile sooner have given over to bear the paper-reed, than they have been weary of writing their brave exploits? and it is not the greatest dishonor, that, of so many sects of philosophers as have existed, they alone should enjoy the benefits that are in cities, without having ever contributed to them anything of their own; but far more serious is it that, while there are not even any tragical or comical poets who do not always endeavor to do or say some good thing or other in defence of the laws and policy these men, if peradventure they write, write of policy, that we may not concern ourselves in the government of the commonweal,--of rhetoric, that we may not perform an act of eloquence,--and of royalty, that we may shun the living and conversing with kings. nor do they ever name any of those great personages who have intermeddled in civil affairs, but only to scoff at them and abolish their glory. thus they say that epaminondas had something of good, but that infinitesimal, or [greek omitted], for that is the very word they use. they moreover call him iron-hearted, and ask what ailed him that he went marching his army through all peloponnesus, and why he did not rather keep himself quiet at home with a garland on his head, employed only in cherishing and making much of his body. but methinks i ought not in this place to omit what metrodorus writ in his book of philosophy, when, utterly abjuring all meddling in the management of the state, he said thus: "some, through an excess of vanity and arrogance, have so deep a comprehension into the business of it, that in discussing the precepts of good life and virtue, they allow themselves to be carried away with the very same desires as were lycurgus and solon." what is this? was it then vanity and abundance of vanity, to set free the city of athens, to render sparta well-policied and governed by wholesome laws, that young men might do nothing licentiously, nor get children upon common courtesans and whores, and that riches, delights, intemperance, and dissolution might no longer bear sway and have command in cities, but law and justice? for these were the desires of solon. to this metrodorus, by way of scorn and contumely, adds this conclusion: "it is then very well beseeming a native born gentleman to laugh heartily, as at other men, so especially at these solons and lycurguses." but such a one, o metrodorus, is not a gentleman, but a servile and dissolute person, and deserves to be scourged, not with that whip which is for free-born persons, but with that scourge made with ankle-bones, with which those eunuch sacrificers called galli were wont to be chastised, when they failed of performing their duty in the ceremonies and sacrifices of the goddess cybele, the great mother of the gods. but that they made war not against the lawgivers but against the laws themselves, one may hear and understand from epicurus. for in his questions, he asks himself, whether a wise man, being assured that it will not be known, will do anything that the laws forbid. to which he answers: "that is not so easy to settle simply,"--that is "i will do it indeed, but i am not willing to confess it." and again, i suppose writing to idomeneus, he exorts him not to make his life a slave to the laws or to the options of men, unless it be to avoid the trouble they prepare, by the scourge and chastisement, so near at hand. if those who abolish laws, governments, and polices of men subvert and destroy human life, and if metrodorus and epicurus do this, by dehorting and withdrawing their friends from concerning themselves in public affairs, by hating those who intermeddle in them, by reviling the first most wise lawgivers, and by advising contempt of the laws provided there is no fear and danger of the whip punishment. i do not see that colotes has brought so many false accusations against the other philosophers as he has alleged and advanced true ones against the writings and doctrines of epicurus. end of ten-----------platonic questions. question i. why did god command socrates to act the midwife's part to others, but charged himself not to generate; as he affirms in theaetetus? (see plato, "theaetetus," p. 149 b.) for he would never have used the name of god in such a merry, jesting manner, though plato in that book makes socrates several times to talk with great boasting and arrogance, as he does now. "there are many, dear friend, so affected towards me, that they are ready even to snap at me, when i offer to cure them of the least madness. for they will not be persuaded that i do it out of goodwill, because they are ignorant that no god bears ill-will to man, and that therefore i wish ill to no man; but i cannot allow myself either to stand in a lie or to stifle the truth." (ibid. p. 151 c.) whether therefore did he style his own nature, which was of a very strong and pregnant wit, by the name of god,--as menander says, "for our mind is god," and as heraclitus, "man's genius is a deity"? or did some divine cause or some daemon or other impart this way of philosophizing to socrates, whereby constantly interrogating others, he cleared them of pride, error, and ignorance, and of being troublesome both to themselves and to others? for about that time there happened to be in greece several sophists; to these some young men paid great sums of money, for which they purchased a strong opinion of learning and wisdom, and of being stout disputants; but this sort of disputation spent much time in trifling squabblings, which were of no credit or profit. now socrates, using an argumentative discourse by way of a purgative remedy procured belief and authority to what he said, because in refuting others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the sooner gained upon people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive after the truth as well as they, than to maintain his own opinion. now, however useful a thing judgment is, it is mightily infected by the begetting of a man's own fancies. for the lover is blinded with the thing loved; and nothing of a man's own is so beloved as is the opinion and discourse he has begotten. and the distribution of children said to be the justest, in respect of discourses is the unjustest; for there a man must take his own, but here a man must choose the best, though it be another man's. therefore he that has children of his own, is a worse judge of other men's; it being true, as the sophister said well, "the eleans would be the most proper judges of the olympic games, were no eleans gamesters." so he that would judge of disputations cannot be just, if he either seeks the bays for himself, or is himself antagonist to either of the antagonists. for as the grecian captains, when they were to settle by their suffrages who had behaved himself the best, every man of them voted for himself; so there is not a philosopher of them all but would do the like, besides those that acknowledge, like socrates, that they can say nothing that is their own; and these only are the pure uncorrupt judges of the truth. for as the air in the ears, unless it be still and void of noise in itself, without any sound or humming, does not exactly take sounds so the philosophical judgment in disputations, if it be disturbed and obstreperous within, is hardly comprehensive of what is said without. for our familiar and inbred opinion will not allow that which disagrees with itself, as the number of sects and parties shows, of which philosophy--if she deals with them in the best manner--must maintain one to be right, and all the others to be contrary to the truth in their positions. furthermore, if men can comprehend and know nothing, god did justly interdict socrates the procreation of false and unstable discourses, which are like wind-eggs, and did him convince others who were of any other opinion. and reasoning, which rids us of the greatest of evils, error and vanity of mind, is none of the least benefit to us; "for god has not granted this to the esculapians." (theognis, vs. 432,) nor did socrates give physic to the body; indeed he purged the mind of secret corruption. but if there be any knowledge of the truth, and if the truth be one, he has as much that learns it of him that invented it, as the inventor himself. now he the most easily attains the truth, that is persuaded he has it not; and he chooses best, just as he that has no children of his own adopts the best. mark this well, that poetry, mathematics, oratory, and sophistry, which are the things the deity forbade socrates to generate, are of no value; and that of the sole wisdom about what is divine and intelligible (which socrates called amiable and eligible for itself), there is neither generation nor invention by man, but reminiscence. wherefore socrates taught nothing, but suggesting principles of doubt, as birth-pains, to young men, he excited and at the same time confirmed the innate notions. this he called his art of midwifery, which did not (as others professed) extrinsically confer intelligence upon his auditors; but demonstrated it to be innate, yet imperfect and confused, and in want of a nurse to feed and fortify it. question ii. why does he call the supreme god father and maker of all things? (plato, "timaeus," p. 28 c.) is it because he is (as homer calls him) of created gods and men the father, and of brutes and things that have no soul the maker? if chrysippus may be believed, he is not properly styled the father of the afterbirth who supplied the seed, although it arose from the seed. or has plato figuratively called the maker of the world the father of it? in his convivium he calls phaedrus the father of the amatorious discourse which he had commenced; and so in his phaedrus ("phaedrus," p. 261 a.) he calls him "father of noble children," when he had been the occasion of many pre-eminent discourses about philosophical questions. or is there any difference between a father and a maker? or between procreation and making? for as what is procreated is also made, but not the contrary recreated did also make, for the procreation of an animal is the making of it. now the work of a maker--as of a builder, a weaver, a musical-instrument maker, or a statuary--is altogether apart and separate from its author; but the principle and power of the procreator is implanted in the progeny, and contains his nature, the progeny being a piece pulled off the procreator. since therefore the world is neither like a piece of potter's work nor joiner's work, but there is a great share of life and divinity in it, which god from himself communicated to and mixed with matter, god may properly be called father of the world--since it has life in it--and also the maker of it. and since these things come very near to plato's opinion, consider, i pray, whether there may not be some probability in them. whereas the world consists of two parts, body and soul, god indeed made not the body; but matter being at hand, he formed and fitted it, binding up and confirming what was infinite within proper limits and figures. but the soul, partaking of mind, reason, and harmony, was not only the work of god, but part of him not only made by him, but begot by him. question iii. in the republic, ("republic," vi. pp. 509 d-511 e.) he assumes the universe, as one line to be cut into two unequal parts; again he cuts each of these parts in two after the same manner, and supposes the two sections first made to form the two genera of things sensible and things intelligible. the first stands for the genus of intelligibles, comprehending in the first subdivision the primitive forms, in the second the mathematics. of sensibles, the first subdivision comprehends solid bodies, the second comprehends the images and representations of them. moreover, to every one of these four he has assigned its proper criterion;--to the first reason; to the mathematics, the understanding; to sensibles, belief; to images and likenesses, conjecture. but what does he mean by dividing the universe into unequal parts? and which of the sections, the intelligible or the sensible, is the greater? for in this he has not explained himself. at first glance it will appear that the sensible is the greater portion. for the essence of intelligibles being indivisible, and in the same respect ever the same, is contracted into a little, and pure; but an essence divisible and running through bodies constitutes the sensible part. now what is immaterial is limited; but body in respect of matter is infinite and unlimited, and it becomes sensible only when it is limited by partaking of the intelligible. besides, as every sensible has many images, shadows, and representations, and from one and the same original several copies may be taken both by nature and art; so the latter must surpass the former in number, according to plato, who makes things of the intellect to be patterns or ideas of things sensible, as if the last were images and reflections. further, plato derives the knowledge of ideas by abstraction and cutting away of body, leading us by mathematical discipline from arithmetic to geometry, thence to astronomy, and placing harmony above them all. for things become geometrical by the accession of magnitude to quantity; solid, by the accession of profundity to magnitude; astronomical, by the accession of motion to solidity; harmonical, by the accession of sound to motion. take then sound from moving bodies, motion from solids, profundity from superficies, magnitude from quantity, we then reach pure intelligible ideas, which have no difference among themselves as regards the one single intelligible essence. for unity makes no number unless joined by the infinite binary; then it makes a number. and thence we proceed to points, thence to lines, from them to superficies, and solids, and bodies, and to the qualities of the bodies so and so affected. now the reason is the only criterion of intelligibles; and the understanding is the reason in the mathematics, where intelligibles appear as if in mirrors. but as to the knowledge of bodies, because of their multitude, nature has given us five powers or distinctions of senses; nor are all bodies discerned by them, many escaping sense by reason of their smallness. and though every one of us consists of a body and soul, yet the hegemonic and intellectual faculty is small, being hid in the huge mass of flesh. and the case is the same in the universe, as to sensible and intelligible. for intelligibles are the principles of bodily things, but everything is greater than the principle whence it came. yet, on the contrary, some will say that, by comparing sensibles with intelligibles, we match things mortal with divine, in some measure; for god is in intelligibles. besides, the thing contained is ever less than the containing, and the nature of the universe contains the sensible in the intelligible. for god, having placed the soul in the middle, hath extended it through all, and hath covered it all round with bodies. the soul is invisible, and cannot be perceived by any of the senses, as plato says in his book of laws; therefore every man must die, but the world shall never die. for mortality and dissolution surround every one of our vital faculties. the case is quite otherwise in the world; for the corporeal part, contained in the middle by the more noble and unalterable principle, is ever preserved. and a body is said to be without parts and indivisible for its minuteness; but what is incorporeal and intelligible is so, as being simple and sincere, and void of all firmness and difference. besides, it were folly to think to judge of incorporeal things by corporeal. the present, or now, is said to be without parts and indivisible, since it is everywhere and no part of the world is void of it. but all affections and actions, and all corruptions and generations in the world, are contained by this same now. but the mind is judge only of what is intelligible, as the sight is of light, by reason of its simplicity and similitude. but bodies, having several differences and diversities, are comprehended, some by one judicatory function, others by another, as by several organs. yet they do not well who despise the discriminative faculty in us; for being great, it comprehends all sensibles, and attains to things divine. the chief thing he himself teaches in his banquet, where he shows us how we should use amatorious matters, turning our minds from sensible goods to things discernible only by the mind, that we ought not to be enslaved by the beauty of any body, study, or learning, but laying aside such weakness, should turn to the vast ocean of beauty. (see plato's "symposium," p. 210 d.) question iv. what is the reason that, though plato always says that the soul is ancienter than the body, and that it is the cause and principle of its rise, yet he likewise says, that neither could the soul exist without the body, nor the reason without the soul, but the soul in the body and the reason in the soul? for 80 the body will seem to be and not to be, because it both exists with the soul, and is begot by the soul. perhaps what we have often said is true; viz., that the soul without reason and the body without form did mutually ever coexist, and neither of them had generation or beginning. but after the soul did partake of reason and harmony, and being through consent made wise, it wrought a change in matter, and being stronger than the other's motions, it drew and converted these motions to itself. so the body of the world drew its original from the soul, and became conformable and like to it. for the soul did not make the nature of the body out of itself, or out of nothing; but it wrought an orderly and pliable body out of one disorderly and formless. just as if a man should say that the virtue of the seed is with the body, and yet that the body of the fig-tree or olive-tree was made of the seed, he would not be much out; for the body, its innate motion and mutation proceeding from the seed, grew up and became what it is. so, when formless and indefinite matter was once formed by the inbeing soul, it received such a form and disposition. question v. why, since bodies and figures are contained partly by rectilinears and partly by circles, does he make isosceles triangles and triangles of unequal sides the principles of rectilinears; of which the isosceles triangle constitutes the cube, the element of the earth; and a scalene triangle forms the pyramid, the octahedron the seed of fire, air and water respectively, and the icosahedron;--while he passes over circulars, though he does mention the globe, where he says that each of the afore-reckoned figures divides a round body that circumscribes it into equal parts. (see "timaeus," pp. 53-56.) is their opinion true who think that he ascribed a dodecahedron to the globe, when he says that god made use of it in delineating the universe? for upon account of the multitude of its bases and the obtuseness of its angles, avoiding all rectitude, it is flexible, and by circumtension, like globes made of twelve skins, it becomes circular and comprehensive. for it has twenty solid angles, each of which is contained by three obtuse planes, and each of these contains one and the fifth part of a right angle. now it is made up of twelve equilateral and equangular quinquangles (or pentagons), each of which consists of thirty of the first scalene triangles. therefore it seems to resemble both the zodiac and the year, it being divided into the same number of parts as these. or is a right line in nature prior to circumference; or is circumference but an accident of rectilinear? for a right line is said to bend; and a circle is described by a centre and distance, which is the place of a right line from which a circumference is measured, this being everywhere equally distant from the middle. and a cone and a cylinder are made by rectilinears; a cone by keeping one side of a triangle fixed and carrying another round with the base,--a cylinder, by doing the like with a parallelogram. further, that is nearest to principle which is less; but a right is the least of all lines, as it is simple; whereas in a circumference one part is convex without, another concave within. besides, numbers are before figures, as unity is before a point, which is unity in position. but indeed unity is triangular; for every triangular number (triangular numbers are those of which equilateral triangles can be formed in this way: . . .. . .. ... . .. ... .... .............. such are: 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, etc.; that is, numbers formed by adding the digits in regular order. (g.)) taken eight times, by adding unity, becomes quadrate; and this happens to unity. therefore a triangle is before a circle, whence a right line is before a circumference. besides, no element is divided into things compounded of itself; indeed there is a dissolution of all other things into the elements. now a triangle is divided into no circumference, but two diameters cut a circle into four triangles; therefore a rectilinear figure is before a circular, and has more of the nature of an element. and plato himself shows that a rectilinear is in the first place, and a circular is only consequential and accidental. for when he says the earth consists of cubes, each of which is contained with rectilinear superficies, he says the earth is spherical and round. therefore there was no need of making a peculiar element for round things, since rectilinears, fitted after a certain manner among themselves, do make up this figure. besides, a right line, whether great or little, preserves the same rectitude; but as to the circumference of a circle, the less it is, the crookeder it is; the larger, the straighter. therefore if a convex surface stands on a plane, it sometimes touches the under plane in a point, sometimes in a line. so that a man may imagine that a circumference is made up of little right lines. but observe whether this be not true, that no circle or sphere in this world is exactly drawn; but since by the tension and circumtension of the straight lines, or by the minuteness of the parts, the difference is hidden, the figure seems circular and round. therefore no corruptible body moves circularly, but altogether in a right line. to be truly spherical is not in a sensible body, but is the element of the soul and mind, to which he has given circular motion, as being agreeable to their nature. question vi. how comes it to pass that in phaedrus it is said, that the nature of a wing, by which anything that is heavy is carried upwards, participates most of the body of god? (see "phaedrus," p. 246 d.) is it because the discourse is of love, and love is of beauty inherent in a body? now beauty, by similitude to things divine, moves and reminds the soul. or it may be (without too much curiosity) he may be understood in plain meaning, to wit, that the several faculties of the soul being employed about bodies, the power of reasoning and understanding partakes most about divine and heavenly things; which he did not improperly call a wing, it raising the soul from mean and mortal things to things above. question vii. in what sense does plato say, that the antiperistasis (or reaction) of motion--by reason there is no vacuum--is the cause of the phenomena in physicians' cupping-glasses, in swallowing, in casting weights, in the running of water, in thunder, in the attraction of the loadstone, and in the harmony of sounds? (see "timaeus," pp. 79-81.) for it seems unreasonable to ascribe the reason of such different effects to the selfsame cause. how respiration is made by the reaction of the air, he has sufficiently shown. but the others, he says, seem to be effected miraculously, but really the bodies force each other aside and change places with one another; while he has left for us to discover how each is particularly done. as to cupping-glasses, the case is thus: the air next to the flesh being comprehended and inflamed by the heat, and being made more rare than the pores of the brass, does not go into a vacuum (for there is no such thing), but into the air that is without the cupping-glass, and has an impulse upon it. this air drives that before it; and each, as it gives way, strives to succeed into the place which was vacuated by the cession of the first. and so the air approaching the flesh comprehended by the cupping-glass, and attracting it, draws the humors into the cupping-glass. swallowing takes place in the same way. for the cavities about the mouth and stomach are full of air; when therefore the meat is squeezed down by the tongue and tonsils, the elided air follows what gives way, and also forces down the meat. weights also thrown cleave the air and dissipate it, as they fall with force; the air recoiling back, according to its proper tendency to rush in and fill the vacuum, follows the impulse, and accelerates the motion. the fall also of thunderbolts is like to darting anything. for by the blow in the cloud, the fiery matter exploded breaks into the air; and it being broken gives way, and again being contracted above, by main force it presses the thunderbolt downwards contrary to nature. and neither amber nor the loadstone draws anything to it which is near, nor does anything spontaneously approach them. but this stone emits strong exhalations, by which the surrounding air being impelled forceth that which is before it; and this being drawn round in the circle, and returning into the vacuated place, forcibly draws the iron in the same movement. in amber there is a flammeous and spirituous nature, and this by rubbing on the surface is emitted by recluse passages, and does the same that the loadstone does. it also draws the lightest and driest of adjacent bodies, by reason of their tenuity and weakness; for it is not so strong nor so endued with weight and strength as to force much air and to act with violence and to have power over great bodies, as the magnet has. but what is the reason the air never draws a stone, nor wood, but iron only, to the loadstone? this is a common question both by those who think the coition of these bodies is made by the attraction of the loadstone, and by such as think it done by the incitement of the iron. iron is neither so rare as wood, nor altogether so solid as gold or a stone; but has certain pores and asperities, which as far as inequality is concerned are proportionable to the air; and the air being received in certain positions, and having (as it were) certain stays to hang to, does not slip off; but when it is carried up to the stone and is forced against it, it draws the iron by force along with it to the stone. such then may be the reason of this. but the manner of the waters running over the earth is not so evident. but it is observable that the waters of lakes and ponds stand immovable, because the air about them stagnates immovable and admits of no vacuity. for the water on the surface of lakes and seas is troubled and fluctuates as the air is moved, it following the motion of the air, and moving as it is moved. for the force from below causes the hollowness of the wave, and from above the swelling thereof; until the air ambient and containing the water is still. therefore the flux of such waters as follow the motion of the receding air, and are impelled by that which presses behind, is continued without end. and this is the reason that the stream increases with the waters, and is slow where the water is weak, the air not giving way, and therefore enduring less reaction. so the water of fountains must needs go upwards, the extrinsic air succeeding into the vacuity and throwing the water out. in a close house, that keeps in the air and wind, the floor sprinkled with water causes an air or wind, because, as the sprinkled water falls, the air gives way. for it is so provided by nature that air and water force one another and give way to one another; because there is no vacuity in which one can be fixed without experiencing the change and alteration in the other. concerning symphony, he shows how sounds harmonize. a quick sound is acute, a slow is grave. therefore acute sounds move the senses the quicker; and these dying and grave sounds supervening, what arises from the contemperation of one with the other causes pleasure to the ear, which we call harmony. and by what has been said, it may easily be understood that air is the instrument of these things. for sound is the stroke upon the sense of the hearer, caused by the air; and the air strikes as it is struck by the thing moving,--if violent, acutely,--if languid, softly. the violent stroke comes quick to the ear; then the circumambient air receiving a slower, it affects and carries the sense along with it. question viii. what means timaeus (see "timaeus," p. 42 d.) when he says that souls are dispersed into the earth, the moon, and into other instruments of time? does the earth move like the sun, moon, and five planets, which for their motions he calls organs or instruments of time? or is the earth fixed to the axis of the universe; yet not so built as to remain immovable, but to turn and wheel about, as aristarchus and seleucus have shown since; aristarchus only supposing it, seleucus positively asserting it? theophrastus writes how that plato, when he grew old, repented him that he had placed the earth in the middle of the universe, which was not its place. or is this contradictory to plato's opinion elsewhere, and in the greek instead of [greek omitted] should it be written [greek omitted], taking the dative case instead of the genitive, so that the stars will not be said to be instruments, but the bodies of animals? so aristotle has defined the soul to be "the actualization of a natural organic body, having the power of life." the sense then must be this, that souls are dispersed into meet organical bodies in time. but this is far besides his opinion. for it is not once, but several times, that he calls the stars instruments of time; as when he says, the sun was made, as well as other planets, for the distinction and conservation of the numbers of time. it is therefore most proper to understand the earth to be here an instrument of time; not that the earth is moved, as the stars are; but that, they being carried about it, it standing still makes sunset and sunrising, by which the first measures of time, nights and days, are circumscribed. wherefore he called it the infallible guard and artificer of night and day. for the gnomons of dials are instruments and measures of time, not in being moved with the shadows, but in standing still; they being like the earth in closing out the light of the sun when it is down,--as empedocles says that the earth makes night by intercepting light. this therefore may be plato's meaning. and so much the rather might we consider whether the sun is not absurdly and without probability said to be made for the distinction of time, with the moon and the rest of the planets. for as in other respects the dignity of the sun is great; so by plato in his republic (plato, "republic." vi. pp. 508, 509.) the sun is called the king and lord of the whole sensible nature, as the chief good is of the intelligible. for it is said to be the offspring of good, it supplying both generation and appearance to things visible; as it is from good that things intelligible both are and are understood. but that this god, having such a nature and so great power, should be only an instrument of time, and a sure measure of the difference that happens among the eight orbs, as they are slow or swift in motion, seems neither decent nor highly rational. it must therefore be said to such as are startled at these things, that it is their ignorance to think that time is the measure of motion in respect of sooner or later, as aristotle calls it; or quantity in motion, as speusippus; or an interval of motion and nothing else, as some of the stoics define it, by an accident, not comprehending its essence and power, which pindar has not ineptly expressed in these words: time, who surpasses all in the seats of the blest. pythagoras also, when he was asked what time was, answered, it was the soul of the universe. for time is no affection or accident of motion, but the cause, power, and principle of that symmetry and order that confines all created beings, by which the animated nature of the universe is moved. or rather, this order and symmetry itself--so far as it is motion--is called time. for this, walking by still and silent ways, mortal things with justice leads. (euripides, "troades," 887.) according to the ancients, the principle of the soul is a number moving itself. therefore plato says that time and heaven were coexistent, but that motion was before heaven had being. but time was not. for then there neither was order, nor measure, nor determination; but indefinite motion, as it were, the formless and rude matter of time.... but when matter was informed with figures, and motion with circuitions, from that came the world, from this time. both are representations of god; the world, of his essence; time, of his eternity in the sphere of motion, as the world is god in creation. therefore they say heaven and motion, being bred together, will perish together, if ever they do perish. for nothing is generated without time, nor is anything intelligible without eternity; if this is to endure forever, and that never to die when once bred. time, therefore, having a necessary connection and affinity with heaven, cannot be called simple motion, but (as it were) motion in order having terms and periods; whereof since the sun is prefect and overseer, to determine, moderate, produce, and observe changes and seasons, which (according to heraclitus) produce all things, he is coadjutor to the governing and chief god, not in trivial things, but in the greatest and most momentous affairs. question ix. since plato in his commonwealth, discoursing of the faculties of the soul, has very well compared the symphony of reason and of the irascible and the concupiscent faculties to the harmony of the middle, lowest, and highest chord, (see "republic," iv. p. 443.) some men may properly inquire:-did plato place the rational or the irascible faculty in the middle? for he is not clear in the point. indeed, according to the natural system of the parts, the place of the irascible faculty must be in the middle, and of the rational in the highest, which the greeks call hypate. for they of old called the chief and supreme [greek omitted]. so xenocrates calls jove, in respect of immutable things, [greek omitted] (or highest), in respect of sublunary things [greek omitted] (or lowest). and long before him, homer calls the chief god [greek omitted], highest of rulers. and nature has of due given the highest place to what is most excellent, having placed reason as a steersman in the head, and the appetitive faculty at a distance, last of all and lowest. and the lowest place they call [greek omitted], as the names of the dead, [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], do show. and some say, that the south wind, inasmuch as it blows from a low and obscure place, is called [greek omitted]. now since the appetitive faculty stands in the same opposition to reason in which the lowest stands to the highest and the last to the first, it is not possible for the reason to be uppermost and first, and yet for any other part to be the one called [greek omitted] (or highest). for they that ascribe the power of the middle to it, as the ruling power, are ignorant how they deprive it of a higher power, namely, of the highest, which is compatible neither to the irascible nor to the concupiscent faculty; since it is the nature of them both to be governed by and obsequious to reason, and the nature of neither of them to govern and lead it. and the most natural place of the irascible faculty seems to be in the middle of the other two. for it is the nature of reason to govern, and of the irascible faculty both to govern and be governed, since it is obsequious to reason, and commands the appetitive faculty when this is disobedient to reason. and as in letters the semi-vowels are middling between mutes and vowels, having something more than those and less than these; so in the soul of man, the irascible faculty is not purely passive, but hath often an imagination of good mixed with the irrational appetite of revenge. plato himself, after he had compared the soul to a pair of horses and a charioteer, likened (as every one knows) the rational faculty to the charioteer, and the concupiscent to one of the horses, which was resty and unmanageable altogether, bristly about the ears, deaf and disobedient both to whip and spur; and the irascible he makes for the most part very obsequious to the bridle of reason, and assistant to it. as therefore in a chariot, the middling one in virtue and power is not the charioteer, but that one of the horses which is worse than his guider and yet better than his fellow; so in the soul, plato gives the middle place not to the principal part, but to that faculty which has less of reason than the principal part and more than the third. this order also keeps the analogy of the symphonies, i.e. the proportion of the irascible to the rational (which is placed as hypate) making the diatessaron (or fourth), that of the irascible to the concupiscent (or nete) making the diapente (or fifth), and that of the rational to the concupiscent (as hypate to nete) making an octave or diapason. but should you place the rational in the middle, you would make the irascible farther from the concupiscent; though some of the philosophers have taken the irascible and the concupiscent faculty for the selfsame, by reason of their likeness. but it may be ridiculous to describe the first, middle, and last by their place; since we see hypate highest in the harp, lowest in the pipe; and wheresoever you place the mese in the harp, provided it is tunable, it sounds more acute than hypate, and more grave than nete. nor does the eye possess the same place in all animals; but whereever it is placed, it is natural for it to see. so a pedagogue, though he goes not foremost but follows behind, is said to lead ([greek omitted]), as the general of the trojan army, now in the front, now in the rear was seen, and kept command; ("iliad," xi. 64.) but wherever he was, he was first and chief in power. so the faculties of the soul are not to be ranged by mere force in order of place or name, but according to their power and analogy. for that in the body of man reason is in the highest place, is accidental. but it holds the chief and highest power, as mese to hypate, in respect of the concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch as it depresses and heightens,--and in fine makes a harmony,--by abating what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull. for what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. still more is it the end of the rational faculty to bring the passions to moderation, which is called sacred, as making a harmony of the extremes with reason, and through reason with each other. for in chariots the best of the team is not in the middle; nor is the skill of driving to be placed as an extreme, but it is a mean between the inequality of the swiftness and the slowness of the horses. so the force of reason takes up the passions irrationally moved, and reducing them to measure, constitutes a mean betwixt too much and too little. question x. why said plato, that speech was composed of nouns and verbs? (plato's "sophist," p. 262 a.) for he seems to make no other parts of speech but them. but homer in a playful humor has comprehended them all in one verse:-[greek omitted] ("iliad", i. 185.) for in it there is pronoun, participle, noun, preposition, article, conjunction, adverb, and verb, the particle--[greek omitted] being put instead of the preposition [greek omitted]; for [greek omitted], to the tent, is said in the same sense as [greek omitted], to athens. what then shall we say for plato? is it that at first the ancients called that [greek omitted], or speech, which once was called protasis and now is called axiom or proposition,--which as soon as a man speaks, he speaks either true or false? this consists of a noun and verb, which logicians call the subject and predicate. for when we hear this said, "socrates philosphizeth" or "socrates is changed," requiring nothing more, we say the one is true, the other false. for very likely in the beginning men wanted speech and articulate voice, to enable them to express clearly at once the passions and the patients, the actions and the agents. now, since actions and affections are adequately expressed by verbs, and they that act and are affected by nouns, as he says, these seem to signify. and one may say, the rest signify not. for instance, the groans and shrieks of stage players, and even their smiles and silence, make their discourse more emphatic. but they have no absolute power to signify anything, as a noun and verb have, but only an ascititious power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of letters. this the ancients have made manifest, whom sixteen letters sufficed to speak and write anything. besides, we must not fail to observe, that plato says that speech is composed of these, not by these; nor must we find fault with plato for omitting conjunctions, prepositions, and the rest, any more than we should criticise a man who should say such a medicine is composed of wax and galbanum, because fire and utensils are omitted, without which it cannot be produced. for speech is not composed of these; yet by their means, and not without them, speech must be composed. as, if a man says beats or is beaten, and adds socrates and pythagoras to the same, he gives us something to conceive and understand. but if a man pronounce indeed or for or about and no more, none can conceive any notion of a body or matter; and unless such words as these be uttered with verbs and nouns, they are but empty noise and chattering. for neither alone nor joined one with another do they signify anything. and join and confound together conjunctions, articles, and prepositions, supposing you would make something of them; yet you will be taken to babble, and not to speak sense. but when there is a verb in construction with a noun, the result is speech and sense. therefore some do with justice make only these two parts of speech; and perhaps homer is willing to declare himself of this mind, when he says so often, [greek omitted] for by [greek omitted] he usually means a verb, as in these verses. [greek omitted], and, [greek omitted] ("odyssey," xxiii. 183; viii. 408.) for neither conjunction, article, nor preposition could be said to be [greek omitted] (terrible) or [greek omitted] (soul grieving), but only a verb signifying a base action or a foolish passion of the mind. therefore, when we would praise or dispraise poets or writers, we are wont to say, such a man uses attic nouns and good verbs, or else common nouns and verbs; but none can say that thucydides or euripides used attic or common articles. what then? may some say, do the rest of the parts conduce nothing to speech? i answer, they conduce, as salt does to victuals; or water to barley cakes. and euenus calls fire the best sauce. though sometimes there is neither occasion for fire to boil, nor for salt to season our food, which we have always occasion for. nor has speech always occasion for articles. i think i may say this of the latin tongue, which is now the universal language; for it has taken away all prepositions, saving a few, nor does it use any articles, but its nouns are (as it were) without skirts and borders. nor is it any wonder, since homer, who in fineness of epic surpasses all men, has put articles only to a few nouns, like handles to cans, or crests to helmets. therefore these verses are remarkable wherein the articles are suppressed.- [greek omitted] ("iliad," xiv. 459.) and, [greek omitted] (ibid. xx. 147.) and some few besides. but in a thousand others, the omission of the articles hinders neither perspicuity nor elegance of phrase. now neither an animal nor an instrument nor arms nor anything else is more fine, efficacious, or pleasanter, for the loss of a part. yet speech, by taking away conjunctions, often becomes more persuasive, as here:- one rear'd a dagger at a captive's breast; one held a living foe, that freshly bled with new-made wounds, another dragg'd a dead. (ibid. xviii. 536.) and this of demosthenes:-"a bully in an assault may do much which his victim cannot even report to another person,--by his attitude, his look, his voice,--when he insults, when he attacks as an enemy, when he smites with his fist, when he strikes a blow on the face. these rouse a man; these make a man beside himself who is unused to such foul abuse." and again:-"not so with midias; but from the very day, he talks, he abuses, he shouts. is there an election of magistrates? midias the anagyrrasian is nominated. he is the advocate of plutarchus; he knows state secrets; the city cannot contain him." ("demosthenes against midias," p. 537,25, and p. 578, 29.) therefore the figure asyndeton, whereby conjunctions are omitted, is highly commended by writers of rhetoric. but such as keep overstrict to the law, and (according to custom) omit not a conjunction, rhetoricians blame for using a dull, flat, tedious style, without any variety in it. and inasmuch as logicians mightily want conjunctions for the joining together their axioms, as much as charioteers want yokes, and ulysses wanted withs to tie cyclop's sheep; this shows they are not parts of speech, but a conjunctive instrument thereof, as the word conjunction imports. nor do conjunctions join all, but only such as are not spoken simply; unless you will make a cord part of the burthen, glue a part of a book, or distribution of money part of the government. for demades says, that money which is given to the people out of the exchequer for public shows is the glue of a democracy. now what conjunction does so of several propositions make one, by fitting and joining them together, as marble joins iron that is incited with it in the fire? yet the marble neither is nor is said to be part of the iron; although in this case the substances compose the mixture and are melted together, so as to make a common substance from several and to be mutually affected. but there be some who think that conjunctions do not make anything one, but that this kind of speech is merely an enumeration, as when magistrates or days are reckoned in order. moreover, as to the other parts of speech, a pronoun is manifestly a sort of noun; not only because it has cases, but because some pronouns, when they are used of objects already defined, by their mere utterance give the most distinct designation of them. nor do i know whether he that says socrates or he that says this one does more by name declare the person. the thing we call a participle, being a mixture of a verb and noun is nothing of itself, as are not the common names of male and female qualities (i.e, adjectives), but in construction it is put with others, in regard of tenses belonging to verbs, in regard of cases to nouns. logicians call them [greek omitted], (i.e., reflected),--as [greek omitted], comes from [greek omitted], and from [greek omitted],--having the force both of nouns and appellatives. and prepositions are like to the crests of a helmet, or footstools and pedestals, which (one may rather say) do belong to words than are words themselves. see whether they rather be not pieces and scraps of words, as they that are in haste write but dashes and points for letters. for it is plain that [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] are abbreviations of the whole words [greek omitted] and [greek omitted]. as undoubtedly for haste and brevity's sake, instead of [greek omitted] and [greek omitted] men first said [greek omitted] and [greek omitted]. therefore every one of these is of some use in speech; but nothing is a part or element of speech (as has been said) except a noun and a verb, which make the first juncture allowing of truth or falsehood, which some call a proposition or protasis, others an axiom, and which plato called speech. end of eleven----------literary essays. the life and poetry of homer (homeric quotations are almost all taken from lord derby's "iliad" and butcher and long's "odyssey." the first is indicated by the letter i, the second by o.) homer, who was in time first among most poets and by his power first of all poets, we justly read first, thereby gaining the greatest advantages for our language, for our intellect, and for practical knowledge. let us speak of his poetry, first having shortly recalled his origin. homer, pindar says, was a chian and of smyrnae; simonides says a chian; antimachus and nicander, a colophonion; but the philosopher aristotle says he was of iete; the historian ephorus says he was from kyme. some do not hesitate to say he was from salamis in cyprus; some, an argive. aristarchus and dionysius the thracian say that he was an athenian. by some he is spoken of as the son of maeon and kritheus; by others, (a son) of the river-god meles. just as there is a difficulty about his origin, so there is about the time in which he flourished. aristarchus says he lived about the period of the ionian emigration; this happened sixty years after the return of the heraclidae. but the affair of the heraclidae took place eighty years after the destruction of troy. crates reports that he lived before the return of the heraclidae, so he was not altogether eighty years distant from the trojan war. but by very many it is believed that he was born one hundred years after the trojan war, not much before the foundation of the olympic games, from which the time according to the olympics is reckoned. there are two poems of his, the "iliad" and the "odyssey," both, of which are arranged according to the number of letters in the alphabet, not by the poet himself, but by aristarchus, the grammarian. of these, the "iliad" records the deeds of the greeks and barbarians in ilium on account of the rape of helen, and particularly the valor displayed in the war by achilles. in the "odyssey" are described the return of ulysses home after the trojan war, and his experiences in his wanderings, and how he took vengeance on those who plotted against his house. from this it is evident that homer sets before us, through the "iliad," bodily courage; in the "odyssey," nobility of soul. but the poet is not to be blamed because in his poetry he sets forth not only the virtues but the evils of the soul, its sadness and its joys, its fears and desires; for being a poet, it is necessary for him to imitate not only good but evil characters. for without these the deeds would not get the admiration of the hearer, who must pick out the better characters. and he has made the gods associating with men not only for the sake of interest and entertainment, but that he might declare by this that the gods care for and do not neglect men. to sum up, an extraordinary and mythical narration of events is employed in order to stir his readers with wonder and to make his hearers strongly impressed. whence he seems to have said some things contrary to what is likely. for the persuasive always follows where the remarkable and elevated are previously conjoined. therefore he not only elevates actions, and turns them from their customary course, but words as well. that he always handles novel things and things out of the common sphere, and leads on his hearers, is evident to every one. and indeed in these fabulous narratives, if one reads not unattentively but carefully each element of what is said, homer appears to have been at home in the whole sphere and art of logic, and to have supplied many incentives, and as it were seeds of all kinds of thought and action to his posterity, not to poets alone, but to the authors of historical and scientific works. let us first look at his varied form of speech, and afterward at his sound knowledge on matters of fact. all poetry grips the hearer by definite order of coordinated expressions, by rhythm and metre, since the smooth and flowing, by becoming at the same time grave and sweet, forces the attention by its action on the senses. whence it comes to pass also that it delights not only by the striking and attractive parts, but easily persuades by the parts tending to virtue. the poems of homer have the most perfect metre, the hexameter, which is also called heroic. it is called hexameter because each line has six feet: one of these is of two long syllables, called spondee; the other, of three syllables, one long and two short, which is called dactyl. both are isochronic. these in interchangeable order fill out the hexameter verse. it is called heroic because in it the deeds of the heroes are recounted. he makes use of a sound diction, combining the characteristics of every greek dialect, from which it is plain that he travelled over the whole of greece and among every people in it. he uses the ellipse of the dorians, due to their practice of shortening their speech, saying for [greek omitted], as (o. i. 392): "immediately a beautiful horse ([greek omitted]) was his," and for [greek omitted] he uses [greek omitted], as (o. xix. 543): "because ([greek omitted]) an eagle killed my geese"; and for [greek omitted], "back," [greek omitted], changing the o into a, the [greek letter omitted] and the [greek letter omitted] into its related letter. and [greek omitted] he changes to [greek omitted](i. xiv. 249): "for before at another time ([greek omitted]) your precepts made me modest," and similar cases. likewise, dropping the middle syllable, he says for [greek omitted], "of like hair," and [greek omitted], "of the same years," [greek omitted]; and for [greek omitted], that is, "of the same father," [greek omitted]; for [greek omitted]; "to tremble," [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "i honour," [greek omitted]. it is a characteristic of the dorians also to transpose letters, as when they say for [greek omitted], [greek omitted]. in composite words he makes use of the syncope of the aeolians, saying [greek omitted] instead of [greek omitted], "they went to sleep," and [greek omitted], for [greek omitted], "to subject." then when the third person of the imperfect among other greek peoples ends in the diphthong [greek letter], the eolians end in [greek letter], as when they say for [greek omitted], "he was loving," [greek omitted], and for [greek omitted], "he was thinking," [greek omitted]. this custom homer followed, saying (i. xi. 105): "he bound ([greek omitted]) in tender twigs," instead of [greek omitted], and (o. v. 478): "which neither any humid power of the wind penetrates" [greek omitted]. besides this they change [greek letter] into [greek letter], as they say [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "odor," and [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "we knew." besides, they use pleonasm in some expressions, as when they put for [greek omitted], "calm," [greek omitted], [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "but," [greek omitted] got [greek omitted], "having cried." and when to the second person of verbs they add [greek omitted], for [greek omitted] "thou speakest," [greek omitted], and for [greek omitted], "thou hast spoken," [greek omitted]. some attribute the doubling of the consonant to the dorians, some to the aeolians. such as we find in i. v. 83: "black death laid hold on [greek omitted] him," [greek omitted]; for [greek omitted] as i. iii. 321: "each did these deeds." he preserves the peculiarity of the ionians for the preterite tenses of verbs the aphaeresis, as where he says [greek omitted] for [greek omitted]. so in past tenses they are want to begin with the same letter as in present tenses and to leave off the [greek letter] in the word [greek omitted], "priest" and [greek omitted], "hawk." besides, they add [greek letter] to the third persons of the subjunctive mood, as when they say for [greek omitted] "may have come," [greek omitted], and for [greek omitted], "may have taken," [greek omitted]. this participle they add to the dative, [greek omitted], "to the gates," "to the woods." besides, they say [greek omitted] for "name", and [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "disease" and [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "empty," and [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "black." and then they change long [greek letter] into [greek letter], as[greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "juno," and for [greek omitted], minerva. and sometimes they change [greek letter] into [greek letter], saying for [greek omitted], "having forgotten." moreover, they write in full by diaeresis words which are circumflexed, for [greek omitted], "intelligent," [greek omitted]. in the same way they lengthen genitive singulars in [greek omitted], as [greek omitted], and genitive feminines in [greek omitted], as [greek omitted], "of gates," [greek omitted], "of nymphs," and finally regular plurals of nouns in the neuter gender ending in [greek letter] as [greek omitted], [greek omitted], "breasts," "darts," and their genitives likewise. they say in their way [greek omitted] for [greek omitted]. but he most largely used the attic dialect for it was combined with others. for just as in attic they say [greek omitted] for [greek omitted], "people," so he did, as [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], "debt." it is a custom with them sometimes to use contractions and to put one syllable for two, as for [greek omitted], "word," [greek omitted], and for [greek omitted], "clothes," [greek omitted]. related to these is that homeric expression, "the trojans in crowds bent over" [greek omitted], and another case, "fields bearing the lotos" [greek omitted], instead of [greek omitted]. besides they take [greek letter] from that type of optative, saying for [greek omitted], "it might seem good to thee," [greek omitted], for [greek omitted], "mightiest thou be honored," [greek omitted]. there is also an atticism [greek omitted] for [greek omitted] in his verse (i. iii. 102):- but you others discerned most quickly. likewise this, too, is attic, "the more were worse [greek omitted], the few better [greek omitted], than their fathers;" we say [greek omitted] or [greek omitted]. and they do not prolong these by diaeresis, [greek omitted], as "oxen [greek omitted] falling down," and, "fishes [greek omitted] and birds." and that, too, is said in the attic fashion (o. xii. 331):- nor flowing do they break ([greek omitted] for [greek omitted]) by their violence. in the same way as [greek omitted], [greek omitted]. and the taking away short vowels is attic: [greek omitted], "he is washed," [greek omitted], "i think," [greek omitted]; in the same way for [greek omitted], "he is loosed," he says [greek omitted]. the attics say [greek omitted], adding an unnecessary [greek letter], whence also comes [greek omitted], "he was pouring out wine." they contract the iota in words of this sort, as for [greek omitted], "shores," [greek omitted], "shores," and for [greek omitted], [greek omitted]. so also (i. xi. 782):- you two [greek omitted] wished it very much. finally in datives ending in pure iota with a penultimate of alpha the same is done, as [greek omitted], "horn," [greek omitted], "old age," [greek omitted], "ray." and this, too, is attic, where it is said [greek omitted], "let them be," and [greek omitted], "let them follow," for [greek omitted] and [greek omitted]. the use of the dual which homer repeatedly employs is of the same type. also with feminine substantives he joins masculine articles, participles, and adjectives, as [greek omitted]. this is a practice with plato, as when he uses [greek omitted] "pillaging," and [greek omitted], "the wise just woman." so, too, homer (i. viii. 455), speaking of here and athene, says:- in vain smitten [greek omitted] with a thunderbolt on our chariots,-and (i. iv. 22):- athene was indeed unwilling [greek omitted],-and (i. ii. 742):- famous [greek omitted] hippodamea. moreover the dialects have many peculiarities of construction. when the poet says (i. iv. 100):- but seek with your javelins of divine menelaos,-instead of the accusative, he presents an attic usage. but when he says (i. ii. 186):- he took for him the sceptre and he took the cup for fair-cheeked themis-instead of "from him" and "from themis," he is employing a dorian usage. accordingly it appears how he makes his diction varied by throwing together words of all the greek dialects, and sometimes he makes use of foreign words as are the aforesaid, sometimes archaic words, as when he says [greek omitted], "falchion," and [greek omitted], "sword," sometimes common and ordinary words, as when he says [greek omitted], "sword and shield"; one might wonder how well common words in his poetry preserve dignity of speech. but an artificially wrought style cultivates variation from the customary, by which it becomes clever, more dignified, and altogether more attractive. the turn of expression is called a trope, and change of construction is called a schema. the forms of these are described in technical treatises. let us examine if any of these is omitted by homer or whether anything else was discovered by his successors which he himself did not use first. among tropes, onomatopoeia is very common. for he knew the early origin of words. the first who gave names to things called many of them from what had taken place, and therefore introduced inarticulate sounds into writing. as when they said [greek omitted], "to blow," [greek omitted], "to cut," [greek omitted], "to woo," [greek omitted], "to thunder," and others like these. whence he himself created certain words not previously existing, copying the things they signified, as [greek omitted], "sound," and other things also indicating sounds, [greek omitted], and others of the same kind. none could be found more significant. and again where some words pertaining to certain things he attributes to others, as when he says (i. xxi. 337):- bearing an evil fire,-which signifies its power in burning, and "fever" he uses for "fire." like these is the expression (i. xix. 25):- brass striking wounds,-he writes to express wounds inflicted by brass. and to sum up he uses much novelty of speech, with great freedom, changing some from their customary use, giving distinction to others for the sake of infusing in his language beauty and grandeur. he has also much fertility in epithets; these being fitted to their objects properly and naturally have the force of proper names, as when he gives to the several gods each some proper designation, so he calls zeus the "all-wise and high thundering," and the sun, hyperion, "advancing aloft," and apollo, phoebus, that is, shining. but after the onomatopoeia let us examine other tropes. catechresis, which changes a word from a customary signification to another not recognized. this is to be found in the poet when he says golden chain [greek omitted], but [greek omitted] properly means a rope, and when he says a goat helmet [greek omitted]; now a helmet is [greek omitted] in homer, because it used to be made of dog's skin, not of goat's skin. metaphor, so-called because it transfers a thing from its proper significance to another with an analogous likeness to both, occurs in many and varied forms in verse, as is the line (o. ix. 481):- he comes, having broken off the crown of a great mountain,-and (o. x. 195): an island which the sea laves and crowns. for the relation a crown has to him whom it encircles, the same the sea has to an island. by making use of related but not usual words he makes his speech not only more beautiful but more picturesque. there are in homer various kinds of metaphors; some applied from animate things to animate, as, "the driver of the caerulean ship spoke" instead of the sailor, and "he went to agamemnon the son of atreus, the shepherd of the people" instead of king. some are applied from animate to inanimate, as (i. ii. 824):- under the extreme foot of ida,-that is, the rising ground. also (i. ix. 141):- the breast of the field,-that is, the fertility. others, on the contrary, from inanimate to animate, as (i. xxiv. 205):- the iron breast. from inanimate to animate, as (o. v. 490):- preserving the seed of fire,-instead of the generating origin. then he has metaphors of verbs as well as substantives (i. xvii. 265):- as the shores bellow with the smiting salt and gale,-instead of "resound." another trope which is called metalepsis, signifying a different thing by a synonym (o. xv. 299):- i beached the ship in the sharp islands,-for he wishes to signify islands properly called jagged. both words in greek are synonyms. for in greek sharp not only signifies swiftness of motion, but also in a figure that which rises into a slender shape. such is the quotation (o. ix. 327):- accompanied him and sharpened my pace. another trope is named synecdoche, called from this reason; that from what is properly meant, another of the like kind is understood. this trope has also many varieties. for either we perceive the part from the whole, as (i. xii. 137):- they advanced straight to the walls the burning bulls,-for he wishes to indicate by the appellation "bulls" the leather out of which shields are wont to be made. or from a part the whole (o. i. 343):- i long for such a head,-for from the head he signifies the man. and when for beautiful he says "endowed with beautiful cheeks," and for well armed he says "well greaved." or from one the many, as when he speaks of odysseus (o. i. 2):- when he wasted the sacred citadel of troy. not he by himself took troy, but along with the rest of the greeks. from the many one, as (i. iii. 397), "happy breasts," i.e. breast. from the species the genus, as (i. xii. 380):- casting on the hard marble,-for marble is a species of rock. from the genus the species (o. ii. 159).- to know the birds and to say many fitting things. he wishes to say not all birds, but only the birds of auspices. from the instruments the action, as (i. ii. 827):- pandorus to whom he gave the bow of apollo. by the bow he indicates the skill in using it. and (o. xii. 172):- sitting they made the water white,-and (o. iii. 486):- now others moved the whole day the thong of their sandal. this comes from an accidental feature; in the first case "they were rowing," in the next "they were running," is to be implied. besides there is the consequent to the precedent, as (o. xi. 245):- she loosed the virgin zone. it follows that she defiled it. from the consequent the precedent, as when instead of saying "to kill" he says "to disarm," that is, to spoil. there is another trope called metonymy, i.e. when an expression applied properly to one thing indicates another related to it, such as (i. ii. 426):- but the young men proceed to grind demeter,-for he means the crop of grain named from its inventor, demeter. and when he says (o. xix. 28):- they held the transfixed entrails over hephaestus. by the name hephaestus he signifies fire. like what has previously been mentioned is this (i. i. 223).- whoever shall touch my choenix,-for what is contained in the choenix is intended. there is besides another trope, autonomasia, when an epithet or co-title is used for a proper name, as in this example (i. viii. 39):- the son of peleus again attacked the son of atreus with petulant words. by this he indicates achilles and agamemnon respectively. and again (i. xxii. 183):- be of good cheer, tritonia, dear daughter,-and in other places (i. xx. 39):- shorn phoebus. in the one case he means athene and in the other apollo. there is, too, antiphrasis, or an expression signifying the opposite from what it appears to do (i. i. 330):- seeing these achilles did not rejoice. he wishes to say the contrary, that seeing them he was disgusted. there is also emphasis, which through reflection adds vigor to what is said (o. xi. 523):- but descending into the home which epeus constructed. in the word "descending" he reveals the great size of the house. of the same kind is the line (i. xvi. 333):- the whole sand was hot with blood,-for in this he furnishes a more intense description, as if the sand was so bathed with blood that it was hot. these kind of tropes were invented by homer first of all. let us look at the changes of construction which are called figures to see if homer also first invented these. figure is a method of expression divergent from ordinary custom for the sake of ornament or utility, altered by a kind of fiction. for beauty is added to narrative by variety and change of expression, and these make the style more impressive. they are also useful because they exalt and intensify innate qualities and powers. among the figures pleonasm is sometimes used for the sake of the metre; as in (i. xix. 247):- odysseus adding all ten talents of gold,-for the word "all" is added without contributing to the sense. it is done for the sake of ornament, cf. (i. xviii. 12).- certainly the strenuous son of menoetius is quite dead,-for the word "quite" is pleonastic after the attic fashion. sometimes by several forms of speech he unfolds his meaning. this is called periphrasis. as when he says "sons of the achaeans" for achaeans, and the "herculean might" for hercules. things are said figuratively by mutation when the ordinary order is inverted. but he puts in an expression in the midst which is called hyperbaton, as in this (i. xvii. 542):- just as a lion feeds on an eaten bull,-instead of saying the lion eats up the bull. and so he passes the limits of the sentence (i. ii. 333):- he said, and loudly cheered the greeks--and loud from all the hollow ships came back the cheers- in admiration of ulysses' speech. the order is the argives applauded with a great shout the speech of divine odysseus. of the same kind is the figure called parembole, or interposition, when something outside having nothing to do with the subject is introduced. if it is removed, the construction is not affected (i. i. 234):- by this i say and with an oath confirm by this my royal staff, which never more shall put forth leaf nor spray, since first it left upon the mountain side its parent stem nor blossom more; since all around the axe hath lopped both leaf and bark--... and the rest as much as he has said about the sceptre, then joining what follows with the beginning (i. i. 340):- the time shall come when all the sons of greece shall mourn achilles' loss. he uses also palillogia--that is the repetition of some part of a sentence, or several parts are repeated. this figure is called reduplication, such as (i. xx. 371):- encounter him well! though his hands were hands of fire, of fire, his hands, his strength as burnished steel. sometimes certain insertions are made and they are repeated, as in (o. i. 22):- howbeit poseidon had now departed for the distant ethiopians, the ethiopians that are sundered in twain, the uttermost of men. this is a figure revealing the feeling of the speaker and at the same time affecting the hearer. of the same kind is relation; when at the commencement of several members of a sentence the same part is repeated. an example of this from the poet is (i. ii. 671):- nireus three well-trimmed ships from syme brought. nireus to charops whom aglaia bore. nireus the goodliest man of all the greeks. this figure is likewise adapted to excite the emotions and give sweetness to the expression. he has also regression. this is when one puts forward two names of objects. when the sense is not yet complete, the poet returns to both of the names, completing what is lacking in the sense, as (i. v. 518).- followed the thronging bands of troy, by mars and fierce bellona led: she by the hand wild uproar held; while mars a giant spear brandished aloft. the characteristic of this figure is variety and perspicuity. he has also the figure called homoioteleuton in which the parts of the sentence have endings similar in sound and have the same syllables at the end (o. xv. 74):- men should love a guest while he is with them, and send him on his way when he would depart,-and in the following (o. vi. 42):-and she departed to olympus, where they say is the seat of the gods that standeth fast forever. not by the wind is it shaken nor ever wet with rain nor doth the snow come nigh thereto, but most clear air is spread about it cloudless and the white light floats over it. when periods or their members end in nouns which are of the same declension this is properly called homoioptolon, as the following (i. ii. 87):- [greek omitted] as swarms of bees, that pour in ceaseless stream from out the crevice of some hollow rock. the above and others like them add grace and attractiveness to the narrative. as a proof of his care in composition we often see he employs two figures in the same verses, as epanaphora and homoioteleuton (i. ii. 382):- each sharpen well his spear, his shield prepare each to his fiery steeds their forage give. belonging to these is the figure called parison, which is formed out of two or more numbers having an equal number of words (i. vii. 93):- shamed to refuse, but fearful to accept.-and again (i. xvi. 282):- had cast away difference, had resumed friendship,-that this figure gives much ornament of style is very clear. the like grace comes from paranomasia, when besides the name in question another similar one is added at a slight interval (i. vi. 130):- not long did dryas' son, lycurgus brave,-and in another (i. ii. 758):- swift-footed protheus led. but the above examples are arranged either by pleonasm or by some such like artifice. but there is another due to absence of a word. of thes omitted the sense is plain from what has gone before, as in the following (i. ix. 328):- twelve cities have i taken with my ships, eleven more by land on trojan soil,-where the words "have i taken" are wanting in last line, but are supplied from the preceding one. this is said to be by ellipse (i. xii. 243):- one bird best to defend the fatherland,-where the word "is" is lacking. and (i. xx. 293):- alas i the grief to me of great-hearted aeneas,-when the words "is present," "comes," or something of the kind, are understood. there are many kinds of ellipses in homer; the effect of the figure is quickness. of this sort is asyndeton when the conjunctions uniting sentences are removed. this is done not only for the sake of celerity, but also of the sake of emotional emphasis. such as is the following (o. x. 251):- we went on our way, noble odysseus, up through the coppice even as thou didst command; we found within the forest glades the fair halls builded of polished stone of circe. in these the conjunction is dropped since the speaker seeks the quickest method of expressing his message. there is among the figures what is called the incongruous or the variation. it is used when the ordinary arrangement is made different. and the variety is due either to impressing grace and elegance to the words; the ordinary movements not seeming to be followed, but the alteration has an arrangement of its own. it often takes place when the genders of nouns are changed as [greek omitted] instead of [greek omitted] and [greek omitted]. it was not unusual for the ancients, and especially among the people of attica, to use masculine for feminine as superior and more vigorous. nor did they do this without rhyme and reason, but when they made use of a word, as an epithet apart from the body which was spoken of. for the words concerned with the body are "great, beautiful," those not connected with it, "glorious, fortunate." besides, they are ambiguous on account of their composition. for in general all compound things are common to either gender. and wherever a verb or participle is used with a masculine and feminine noun, the masculine prevails (i. vi. 567):- the virgins and the youths minding childish things,-where the participle is masculine. certain things, owing to the peculiarity of the dialect or the custom of that time, are said differently, [greek omitted] feminine instead of [greek omitted] (o. i. 53):- and himself upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder. often as the narrative proceeds he changes the genders, as in (o, xv. 125):- i give to you the gift, my dear son. son is a neuter substantive to which the adjective agrees; the poet refers it to the person. of the same kind is that which is said by dione to venus (i. v. 382):- have patience, dearest child; though much enforced. analogous to it is that (o. xi. 90):- anon came the soul of theban teiresias, with a golden sceptre in his hand,-for he made the participle [greek omitted] agree not with the gender of soul [greek omitted], but the gender of the body, that is, teiresias. for often he looks not to the word but to the sense, as in this passage (i. xvi. 280):- in all their spirit stirred, and the phalanxes moved hoping for the idle son of peleus from the ships,-for the participle [greek omitted] does not agree with the word "phalanxes," but with the men composing them. in another way he changes genders, as when he says (o. xii. 75):- and a dark cloud encompasses it; this never streams away,-since [greek omitted] and [greek omitted], "cloud," are synonyms, using first [greek omitted] he afterward makes his adjectives agree with [greek omitted] understood. like this are these verses (i. ii. 459):- as various tribes of winged fowl or geese or cranes or long necked swans besides coysters stream, now here, now there, disporting, ply their wings. for having first set down generically the kinds of birds, which are neuter, then after speaking of the species in the masculine he comes back again to the neuter--settling down with a noise giving the proper agreement to the general word of the species. the poet often changes the number as well as the gender (i. xv. 305):- the crowd approach the ships of the achaeans. first comes a singular then a plural verb, plainly looking to the sense, for although the word "crowd" is called singular, yet it embraces many individuals. like it in the opposite way is when the plural precedes the singular follows (i. xvi. 264):- they having a martial heart each one rushes on. the word [greek omitted] is singular, being applied to a multitude has the same effect as all ([greek omitted]). the same kind of figure is the following (o. iii. 4):- and they reached pylas, the stablished castle of neleus, and the people were doing sacrifice on the seashore. the people of pylas are meant. he has changes of cases, the nominative and the vocative being interchanged in the following verse (i. ii. 107):- to agamemnon last thyestis left it,-and (i. i. 411):- cloud-compelling zeus,-and (0. xvii. 415):- friend [greek omitted] give me for thou dost not seem to me to be the worst of the greeks. the genitive and dative are changed in the next example (i. iii. 16):- godlike paris fights in front for the trojans,-instead of "in front of." and the contrary in the next (o. v. 68):- there about the hollow cave trailed a gadding vine. where in the original the greek word "cave" is in the genitive case, not as it should be, dative. and the cause of the mutation is that the nominative accusative and vocative seem to have a certain relation to one another. on which account nouns of the neuter gender and many masculine and feminine ones have these three cases alike. likewise the genitive has a certain affinity with the dative. this is found in the dual number of all words. hence the cases are changed contrary to what is usual. sometimes it is possible to discover the reason for the change, as in the expression (i. v. 222):- understanding of the field,-and (i. ii. 785):- they crossed the field,-just as if he had used the preposition "through." a fine example of change of case is found in the beginning of both his poems:- sing, o muse, the vengeance, etc., whence to greece unnumbered ills arose. tell me, muse, of that man, of many a shift and many the woes he suffered. sometimes after the genitive he brings in the nominative, as in this (i. i. 272):- of others who are now mortal. he arranges many things in figures in various ways, as the following passage (i. ii. 350):- for well i ween, that on the day when first we grecians hitherward our course address'd to troy the messengers of blood and death th' o'erruling son of saturn, on our right his lightning flashing, with auspicious sign assur'd us of his favor. and the following is not unlike it (i. vi. 510):- his bright arms flashing like the gorgeous sun hasten'd with boastful mien and rapid step. and these things, according to the ancient fashion, he exalts not unreasonably. if any one changes the participles into verbs, he will discover the sequence, for the word "lightning" has the same value as "when it was lightning," and "relying" "since he relied." like these cases are the following (o. xii. 73):- there are two crags, one reaches the broad sky, and (i. vii. 306):- they parted: ajax to the grecian camp and hector to the ranks of troy returned. and others of the same kind. for it is reasonable when one is about to speak of two individuals to put first what is common to the two, keeping the nominative in both cases. it is plain that this common use displays much grace. sometimes employing a common case he signifies only one, as in the following (i. iii. 211):- both sat down, ulysses was the higher in honor. the form of words he often changes, sometimes putting the comparative instead of the absolute (i. i. 32):- that you may return a more sane being. sometimes the superlative for the positive, as (i. xi. 832);- most just of centaurs. such is the change in nouns. but in verbs there is a change in moods, as when the infinitive is used for the imperative, as (i. v. 124):- go fearless onward, diomed, to meet the trojan darts,-where the imperative "meet" might be expected. or the indicative in place of the optative, as (i. ii. 488):- the crowd i shall not relate nor name,-where one would expect "i could not relate nor name." and, on the contrary, the optative for the indicative, as (i. v. 388):- mars would then be lost,--for "was lost." there is a variation of tenses when the present is used for the future (i. l. 29)- her i release not till her youth be fled,-instead of "shall flee." or for the imperfect (o. vi. 86):- where truly were the unfailing cisterns, and bright water wells up free from beneath,-instead of "welled up." and the future for the present (o. i. 24):- abiding some, where hyperion will sink; and some, where he rises. or in place of the past (o. v. 300):- i fear that indeed the goddess may spake all things truly. and the voices are often changed. instead of the active, the passive and middle are often used, as (i. i. 194):- a great sword is drawn from its sheath,-instead of "he drew." and (i. xiii. 4):- his keen glance turning to view,--instead of "seeing." and, on the other hand, the active instead of the passive:- i shall give a tripod with a golden handle,--instead of "shall be given." it can be seen how he changes numbers, putting the plural for the singular as often happens in common speech when one speaks of himself as if of several, as in the following (o. i. 10):- of these things, goddess daughter of zeus, from whatsoever source thou wilt declare even to us,-instead of "to me." we find with him a change of persons of one sort, as (i. v. 877):- the other gods, who in olympus dwell, are to thee obedient and we are submissive. for since there are many gods, among whom is the person speaking, both classes are well indicated by saying, "they are obedient" and "we are submissive." in another way leaving the person who is spoken of, he changes from one to another. this is called specifically apostrophe, and affects us by its emotional character and stimulates the hearer, as in the following stanza (i. xv. 346):- while loudly hector to the trojans called to assail the ships and leave the bloody spoils whom i elsewhere and from the ships aloof shall find,-changing from the narrative to direct discourse. in the narration itself he often uses apostrophe (i. xx. 2.): round thee eager for the fray stood the sons of greece. but he makes use of direct narrative and change of persons, as in the following passage (i. ii. 337):- like children, grecian warriors, ye debate like babes to whom unknown are feats of arms. atrides thou, as is thy wont, maintain unchang'd thy counsel; for the stubborn fight array the greeks. there is another kind of this apostrophe (i. ii. 344):- thou wouldst not know to whom tydides may join himself,-instead of "no one can know." and again (o. ix. 210):- and a marvellous sweet smell went up from the mixing bowl: then truly it was no pleasure to refrain. 58. he uses participles in the place of verbs, as in these words (i. viii. 306):- weighed down in a garden by this fruit,-instead of "it is weighed," and (o. xiii. 113):- thither they as having knowledge of that place drive their ships,-instead of "before they knew." and articles he often changes, setting demonstrative instead of relatives (i. xvi. 150):- whom podarge, swift of foot, to zephyr bore,--and the contrary (i. xvii. 460):- and breastplate: for his own his faithful friend hath lost. so he was wont to change prepositions (i. i. 424):- yesterday he went through the banquet,--instead of "to the banquet." and (i. i. 10):- and he stirred up an evil plague through the army. likewise he joins with a preposition a noun improperly, as in the verse (i. x. 101):- lest perchance they wish to decide the contest in the night,-where the preposition is followed by, the accusative, not the genitive. and as to other prepositions, some he changes, some he omits (i. ii. 696):- of whom he lies lamenting,--instead of "concerning whom." and (o. xxiii. 91):- expecting whether he would bespeak him,--instead of "speak to him." and other prepositions he in the same fashion changes or leaves out. and adverbs he changes, using indifferently motion towards, rest in, and motion from a place (i. xx. 151):- his grandchildren were setting down from elsewhere,--instead of "elsewhere" (i. vii. 219):- and ajax came from near,--instead of "near." finally he has changes of conjunctions, as (o. i. 433):- he never lay with her and he shunned the wrath of his lady,- instead of "for he shunned," etc. and these are the figures of speech which not only all poets but the writers of prose have employed. but significance is given by him in many ways. one of which is proanaphonesis, which is used when any one in the midst of a narration uses an order proper to other things, as in the following line (o. xxi, 98):- he was to be the first that should taste the arrow,- and epiphonesis (i. xvii. 32):- after the event may e'en a fool be wise. the use of prosopopoiia is frequent and varied with him. for he introduces many different people speaking together, to whom he attributes various characteristics. sometimes he re-creates characters no longer living, as when he says (i. vii. 125):- what grief would fill the aged pellus's soul. there is, too, diatyposis, which is the working out of things coming into being or actually existent or that have come to pass, brought in to make what is said clearer, as in the following (i. ix. 593):- the slaughtered men, the city burnt with fire, the helpless children and deep-bosomed dames. or, to produce pity (i. xxii. 60):- look, too, on me with pity: me on whom e'en on the threshold of mine age, hath jove a bitter burthen cast, condemned to see my sons struck down, my daughters dragged away in servile bonds: our chamber's sanctity invaded; and our babes by hostile hands dashed to the ground. there is also to be found in him irony, i.e. an expression revealing the opposite of what is said with a certain ethical artifice; as in the speech of achilles (i. ix. 391):- let him choose among the greeks a fitter king. for he hints that he would not find one of more royal temper. and this is the same trope used when one speaks about himself in extenuation and gives a judgment contrary to one's own. there is another form when any one pretends to praise another and really censures him. as the verse in homer, put in the mouth of telemachus (o. xvii. 397):- antinous--verily thou hast good care of me, as it were a father for his son. for he says to an enemy that he cares as a father for his son, and, again, when any one by way of jest extolls his neighbor, as the suitors (o. ii. 325):- in my truth telemachus planneth our destruction. he will bring a rescue either from sandy pylos, or it may be from sparta, so terribly is he set on slaying us. sarcasm is a species of irony used when any one jibes at another with a pretence of smiling. as achilles, in the following passage (i. ix. 335):- he meted out their several portions, and they hold them still. from me, from me alone of all the greeks, he bore away and keeps my cherished wife. well! let him keep her, solace of his bed. like this in kind is allegory, which exhibits one thing by another, as in the following (o. xxii. 195):- now in good truth melanthiusi shalt thou watch all night, lying on, a soft bed as beseems thee. for being in chains and hanging, he says he can rest on a soft bed. often, too, he makes use of hyperbole, which, by exaggerating the truth, indicates emphasis, as (i. x. 437):- these surpass in brilliancy the snow, in speed the eagle. homer used tropes and figures of this sort and handed them down to posterity, and justly obtains glory beyond all others. since there are also characters of speech called forms, of which one is copiousness, the other gracefulness, and the third restraint, let us see if homer has all these separate classes, on which poets and orators have worked after him. there are examples of these--copiousness in thucydides, gracefulness in lysias, restraint in demosthenes. that is copious which by combination of words and sentences has great emphasis. an example of this is (o. v. 291):- with that he gathered the clouds and troubled the waters of the deep, rasping his trident in his hands: and he roused all storms of all manner of winds and shrouded in clouds the land and sea: and down sped night from heaven. the graceful is delicate by the character of the matter. it is drawn out by the way it is expressed (i. vi. 466).- thus he spake, great hector stretch'd his arms to take the child: but back the infant shrank, crying, and sought his nurse's sheltering breast, scar'd by the brazen helm and horse-hair plume. the restrained is between the two, the copious and the graceful, as (o. xxii. 291):- then odysseus, rich in counsel, stripped him of his rags and leaped on the great threshold with his bow and quiver full of arrows, and poured forth all the swift shafts there before his feet, and spake among the wooers. but the florid style of speech, which has beauty and capacity for creating delight and pleasure, like a flower, is frequent in our poet; his poetry is full of such examples. the kinds of phrasing have much novelty in homer, as we shall go on to show, by giving a few examples from which the rest may be gathered. every type of style practised among men is either historical, theoretic, or political. let us examine whether the beginnings of these are to be found in him. historical style contains a narration of facts. the elements of such a narration are character, cause, place, time, instrument, action, feeling, manner. there is no historical narration without some of these. so it is with our poet, who relates many things in their development and happening. sometimes in single passages can be found relations of this kind. of character, as the following (i. v. 9):- there was one dores 'mid the trojan host, the priest of vulcan, rich, of blameless life; two gallant sons he had, idaeus named and phegeus, skilled in all the points of war. he describes features, also, as in the case of thersites (i. ii. 217):- with squinting eyes, and one distorted foot, his shoulders round, and buried in his breast his narrow head, with scanty growth of hair. and many other things, in which he often pictures the type or appearance or character, or action or fortune of a person, as in this verse (i. xx. 215):- dardanus first, cloud-compelling zeus begot,--and the rest. there is in his poetry description of locality; where he speaks about the island near that of the cyclops, in which he describes the look of the place, its size, its quality, and the things in it, and what is near it. also, when he describes the things adjacent to the island of calypso (o. v. 63):- and round about the cave there was a wood-blossoming alder and poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress. and what follows. and innumerable other things of the same kind. time narratives are found as follows (i. ii. 134):- already now nine weary years have passed. and (i. ii. 303):- not long ago, when ships of greece were met at aulis charged with evil freight for troy. then there are the causes, in which he shows why something is coming to pass or has come to pass. such are the things said at the beginning of the "iliad" (i. i. 8):- say then, what god the fatal strife provoked jove's and latona's son; he filled with wrath against the king, with deadly pestilence the camp afflicted--and the people died for chryses' sake, his priest, whom atreus' son with scorn dismissed, --and the rest. in this passage he says the cause of the difference between achilles and agamemnon was the plague; but the plague was caused by apollo, and his wrath was due to the insult put upon his priest. description of the instrument he gives, as when he tells of the shield made by vulcan for achilles. and there is a briefer one on the spear of hector (i. viii. 493):- in his hand his massive spear he held twelve cubits long, whose glittering point flash'd bright with hoop of gold encircled round. narrations of fact are of several kinds, some like the following (i. vii. 60):- when in the midst they met, together rush'd bucklers and lances, and the furious might of mail-clad warriors; bossy shield on shield clattered in conflict; loud the clamor rose. the emotional narrative is where the incident is connected with some personal cause or energy, as when he speaks about things arising from anger or fear or sorrow, or when people are wounded, killed, or any other such thing happens to them. as a specimen of cause, take the following (i. i. 103):- his dark soul filled with fury, and his eyes flashed like flames of fire. of an action (i. xvii. 51):- those locks, that with the graces hair might vie, those tresses bright, with gold and silver bound, were dabbled all with blood. a trope is constructive of action, or experience, or form, according as one acts in a special way or is acted upon. he follows the whole scene in this sort of narrative. an example of it would be as follows (o. xxii. 15):- but odysseus aimed and smote him with the arrow in his throat, and the point passed clean out through his delicate neck and he fell back, and the cup dropped from his hand as he was smitten, and at once through his nostrils there came up a thick jet of slain man's blood. there is also in homer narration which has for the most part copious expression, a method of working in full, fitting the subject. sometimes, however, it is concise, as in the following (i. xviii. 20):- patroclus lies in death, and o'er his body now the war is waged, his naked body, for his arms are now the prize of hector of the glancing helmet. this type is often useful, for the quickness of the words make the reader and speaker more intent, and he immediately takes in the subject. sometimes he tells his story lightly; sometimes by an image or likeness or simile. an image, as when he says (o. xix. 53):- now forth from her chamber came the wise penelope like artemis or golden aphrodite. a likeness as (i. iii. 196):- he like a goat crossed the serried lines first. a simile, when he makes a comparison of closely related things that has a connection with subject narrated. there are in homer various kinds of similes. constantly and in many ways he compares the behavior and nature of animals to the arts and habits of men. sometimes he takes a similitude from very small things, not considering the size of the body, but the nature of each; whence he likens boldness to a fly (i. xvii. 570):- and she breathed in his breast the courage of the fly. and he compares assiduity to the same creature (i. ii. 469):- as the many generations of numberless flies. the packing together and orderly moving crowd to bees (i. ii. 87):- as are the crowds of countless bees. so he shows anger and irritation (i. xvi. 259):- like skilful wasps. and he adds in the same place "when boys are wont to tease," in order that he might heighten their passionate temper by being stirred up by children. of a continuous sound, he says (i. iii. 151):- abundant as the cricket. for it is a most chattering creature and incessant in it. but those that produce with no order all kinds of sounds, he likens to (i. iii. 3):- just as the clamor of geese strikes to heaven. but the multitudes resting in order, he likens to birds settling down (i. ii. 493):- sitting down with clamor. sharpness of sight and act he sometimes likens to the falcon (i. xv. 238):- like to a falcon, swooping on a dove, swiftest of birds. but sometimes to an eagle (i. xvii. 676):- like to an eagle, famed of sharpest sight of all that fly beneath the vault of heav'n whom, soaring in the clouds, the crouching dove eludes not. he declares its sharpness by its seeing from afar off; its swiftness, by its seizing a very active animal. a man, overcome by the sight of an enemy he compares to one who sees a snake, for he does not hesitate to take examples from reptiles (i. iii. 33):- as when some traveller spies, could in his path upon the mountain side, a deadly snake. from the other animals he takes examples; of timidity from the hare and also from the stag (i. iv. 243):- why stand ye thus like timid fawns? from dogs sometimes he takes daring (i. x. 360):- and as the hounds, well practis'd in the chase. sometimes love for their offspring (i. x. 14):- as a dog loves and defends its pups. but sometimes their readiness in watching (i. x. 183):- as round a sheepfold keep their anxious watch the dogs. a capture done with passion and boldness he is wont to compare to wolves (i. xvi. 352):- as rav'ning wolves that lambs or kids assail. bravery and constancy he shows by wild boars, panthers, and lions, dividing to each one what belongs to its nature. from boars, the onslaught they have, in fighting, making it irresistible (i. iv. 253):- idomeneus of courage stubborn as the forest boar. from panthers, inexhaustible daring (i. xxi. 577):- as when a panther by the spear transfixed does not remit her rage. from lions, hesitation, finally bravery, as (i. xx. 171):- and with his tail he lashes both his flanks and limbs. again the rush of a valiant man he likens to a horse which has had a full meal (i. vi. 506):- as some proud steed, at well-fill'd manger fed. and, on the contrary, one slow to move; but in endurance not easily overcome, he shows in this way (i. xi. 558):- as near a field of corn, a stubborn ass o'powers his boyish guides. the kingly temper and dignity he expresses in the following (i. ii. 480):- as 'mid the thronging heifers in a herd stands, proudly eminent, the lordly bull. he does not omit similes taken from marine creatures, the perseverance of a polypus and the difficulty of removing it from a rock (o. v. 432):- as when the cuttlefish is dragged forth from his chamber. the leadership and prominence of the dolphin over the rest (i. xxi. 22):- as fishes flying from a dolphin. oftentimes things made by men he compares to others similarly made, as in this (i. xi. 67):- the rival bands of reapers mow the swathe. showing the resistance and bravery of men. but one lamenting ignobly, he blames in a clear comparison (i. xvi. 7):- why weeps patroelus like an infant girl? he dared to compare human actions to the elements of nature, as in the following passage (i. ii. 394):- from th' applauding ranks of greece rose a loud sound, as when the ocean wave, driv'n by the south wind on some lofty beach, dashes against a prominent crag expos'd to blasts from every storm that wars around. in these it is plain he used hyperbola and amplification, for he was not satisfied with comparing the clamor to the sound of the wind, but to the waves beating on a craggy shore, where the high sea makes the noise greater. nor is the tempest an ordinary one, but it comes from the south, which especially stirs up the billows, and it is driven against a projecting crag stretching out into the sea, and surrounded by it, and it has the sea over it constantly, and from every side the winds blow and fall upon it. such things as these are worked out by him in his descriptions. from a few examples we can become acquainted with many. let us see if the other forms of narrative are to be found in our author and how he took cognizance of them and clearly prepared them. we will give a few examples and so facilitate acquaintance with the rest. there is the theoretic style, which embraces what is called speculative matter, which is a knowledge of the truth conceived in art. by these it is possible to know the nature of reality, both divine and human things, and to discriminate virtues and vices in morals and to learn how to attain truth by logical skill. these things are the province of those who are occupied in philosophy, which is divided into natural, ethical, and dialectical. if we find out homer supplying the beginnings and the seeds of all these, is he not, beyond all others, worthy of admiration? because he shows matters of intelligence by dark sayings and mythical expressions, it ought not to be considered strange. the reason is to be found in poetic art and ancient custom. so those who desired to learn, being led by a certain intellectual pleasure, might the easier seek and find the truth, and that the unlearned might not despise what they are not able to understand. for what is indicated indirectly is stimulating, while what is said clearly is valued more moderately. let us begin with the beginning and creation of the whole universe, which thales the milesian refers to the substance water, and let us see whether homer first discovered this when he said (i. xiv. 246):- even to the stream of old oceanus prime origin of all. after him xenophanes of colophon, laying down that the first elements were water and land, seems to have taken this conception from the homeric poems (i. vii. 99):- to dust and water turn all ye who here inglorious sit. for he indicates their dissolution into the original elements of the universe. but the most likely opinion makes four elements,--fire, air, water, earth. these homer shows he knows, as in many places he makes mention of them. he knew, too, the order of their arrangement. we shall see that the land is the lowest of them all, for as the world is spherical, the sky, which contains all things, can reasonably be said to have the highest position. the earth being in the midst everywhere is below what surrounds it. this the poet declares chiefly in the lines where he says if zeus let a chain down from olympus, he could turn over the land and sea so that everything would be in the air (i. viii. 23):- but if i choose to make my pow'r be known, the earth itself and ocean i could raise, and binding round olympus' ridge the cord leave them suspended so in middle air. although the air is around the earth, he says the ether is higher in the following lines (i. xiv. 287):- and going up on a lofty pine, which then grew on the summit of ida and through the air reached into the ether. but higher than the ether is heaven (i. xvii. 424):- and thus they fought: the iron clangor pierc'd the airless ether and brazen vault of heaven. and, besides, in the following (i. i. 497):- the vapor ascended to the great heaven and to olympus. the top part of the air is finer and more distant from the earth and its exhalations. therefore it is said olympus is called "wholly shining." where the poet says hera is the wife of zeus, although she is his sister, he seems to speak in an allegory, since hera stands for the air, which is a humid substance. therefore he says (i. xxi. 6):- hera spread before their path clouds of thick darkness. by zeus is signified the ether, that is the fiery and heated substance (i. xv. 192):- broad heav'n amid the sky and clouds, to jove. they seem brother and sister on account of a certain likeness and relationship, because both are light and mobile; they dwell together and are intimate, because from their intercourse all things are generated. therefore they meet in ida, and the land produces for them plants and flowers. the same explanation have those words in which zeus says he will, hang hera and fasten two weights to her feet, namely, the land and the sea. he works out especially the principles of the elements in what poseidon says to him (i. xv. 187):- we were brethren, all of rhaea born to saturn: jove and i and pluto third, who o'er the nether regions holds his sway, and (i. xv. 189):- threefold was our partition: each obtain'd his meed of honor due. and in the division of the whole, zeus obtained the element fire, poseidon water, and hades that of air. him he also calls "aerial darkness," because the air has no proper light, but is lightened by the sun, moon, and other planets. the fourth part was left common to all, for the primal essence of the three elements is always in motion. the earth alone remains unmoved, to which he added also olympus; it may have been because it is a mountain, being a part of the earth. if it belongs to heaven, as being the most brilliant and purest part of it, this may be the fifth essence in the elements, as certain distinguished philosophers think. so he, with reason, has conjectured it was common, the lowest part belonging to the earth by its weight, and the top parts to olympus by their lightness. the natures between the two are borne upward to the one and downward to the other. since the nature of the elements is a combination of contraries, of dryness and moisture, hot and cold, and since by their relation and combination all things are constructed and undergo partial changes,--the whole not admitting of dissolution,--empedocles says all things exist in this manner: "sometimes in love all things meeting together in one. sometimes, again, each being carried away by animosity of hate." the concord and unity of the elements he calls love, their opposition, hate. before his time homer foreshadowed love and hate in what he says in his poetry (i. xiv. 200):- i go to visit old oceanus the sire of gods, and tethys, i go to visit them and reconcile a lengthen'd feud. a similar meaning has the myth about, aphrodite and ares, the one having the same force as empedocles's love, the other his hate. when they sometimes come together, and again separate, the sun reveals them, hephaestus binds them, and poseidon releases them. whence it is evident that the warm and dry essence, and the contrary of these, the cold and wet, sometimes combine all things and again dissolve them. related to these is what is said by other poets that by the intercourse of ares and aphrodite arises harmony; a combination of contraries grave and acute analogously accommodating themselves to one another. by which arrangement things which are endowed with a contrary nature are all mutually opposed. the poet seems to have signified this enigmatically in the conflict of the gods, in which he makes some help the greeks and some the trojans, showing allegorically the character of each. and he set over against poseidon phoebus, the cold and wet against the hot and dry: athene to ares, the rational to the irrational, that is, the good to the bad. hera to artemis, that is, the air to the moon, because the one is stable and the other unstable. hermes to latona, because speech investigates and remembers, but oblivion is contrary to these. hephaestus to the river god, for the same reason that the sun is opposed to the sea. the spectator of the fight was the primary god, and he is made taking joy in it. from the afore-mentioned matter homer seems to show this: that the world is one and finite. for if it had been infinite, it would never have been divided in a number having a limit. by the name "all" he signifies the collective whole. for in many other cases he uses the plural for the singular. he signifies the same thing more clearly in saying (i. xiv. 200):- the ends of the earth,--and again where he says (i. vii. 478):- nor should i care though thou wert thrust beneath the lowest deep of earth and ocean,--and in on the very top of many-peaked olympus where there is a top, there, too, is a limit. his opinions about the sun are plain. that it has an orbicular energy sometimes appearing over the earth, sometimes going under it, this he makes evident by saying (o. x. 190):- my friends, lo we know not where is the place of darkness or of dawning, nor where the sun that gives light to men goes beneath the earth, nor where he rises. and that he is always preceding over us and on this account is called hyperion by our poet; that he makes the sun rising from the water which surrounds the earth the ocean, that the sun descends into it, is clearly expressed. first, as to the rising (o. iii. l):- now the sun arose and left the lovely mere speeding to the brazen heaven, to give light to the immortals and to mortal men on the earth. its setting (i. vii. 486):- the sun, now sunk beneath the ocean wave, drew o'er the teeming earth the veil of night. and he declares its form (o. xix. 234):- he was brilliant as the sun, and its size (i. xi. 735):- we as sunlight overspread the earth. and more in the following (o. iv. 400):- so often as the sun in his course has reached the mid-heaven,--and its power (o. ii. log):- of helios, who overseeth all and ordereth all things. finally that it has a soul, and in its movement is guided by choice in certain menaces it makes (o. xii. 383):- i will go down to hades and shine among the dead. and on this thus zeus exhorts him:- helios, see that thou shine on amidst the deathless gods amid mortal men upon the earth, the grain giver. from which it is plain that the sun is not a fire, but some more potent being, as aristotle conjectured. assuredly, fire is borne aloft, is without a soul, is easily quenchable and corruptible; but the sun is orbicular and animate, eternal and imperishable. and as to the other planets scattered through the heavens, that homer is not ignorant is evident in his poems (i. xviii. 480):- pleiads and hyads and orions might. the bear which always encircles the north pole is visible to us. by reason of its height it never touches the horizon, because in an equal time, the smallest circle in which the bear is, and the largest in which orion is, revolves in the periphery of the world. and bootes, slowly sinking because it makes a frequent setting, has that kind of position, that is carried along in a straight line. it sinks with the four signs of zodiac, there being six zodiacal signs divided in the whole night. that he has not gone through all observations of the stars, as aratus or some of the others, need be surprising to no one. for this was not his purpose. he is not ignorant of the causes of disturbances to the elements as earthquakes and eclipses, since the whole earth shares in itself air, fire, and water, by which it is surrounded. reasonably, in its depths are found vapors full of spirit, which they say being borne outward move the air; when they are restrained, they swell up and break violently forth. that the spirit is held within the earth they consider is caused by the sea, which sometimes obstructs the channels going outward, and sometimes by withdrawing, overturns parts of the earth. this homer knew, laying the cause of earthquakes on poseidon, calling him earth container and earth shaker. now, then, when these volatile movements are kept within the earth, the winds cease to blow, then arises the darkness and obscurity of the sun. let us see whether he was aware also of this. he made poseidon moving the earth after achilles issued forth to fight. for he had previously mentioned on the day before what the state of the air was. in the incident of sarpedon (i. xvi. 567):- zeus extended opaque shadows over the fight,-and again in the case of patroclus (i. xvii. 366):- now might ye deem the glorious sun himself nor moon was safe, for darkest clouds of night overspread the warriors. and a little while afterward ajax prays (i. xvii. 645):- o father jove, from o'er the sons of greece, remove this cloudy darkness; clear the sky that we may see our fate. but after the earthquake, the vapor issuing forth, there are violent winds, whence hera says (i. xxi. 334):- while from the sea i call the strong blast of zephyr and brisk notus who shall drive the raging flames ahead. on the following day iris calls the winds to the pyre of patroclus (i. xxiii. 212):- they with rushing sound rose and before them drove the hurrying clouds. so the eclipse of the sun takes place in a natural manner, when the moon on its passage by it goes under it perpendicularly and is darkened. this he seems to have known. for he said before that odysseus was about to come (o. xiv. 162):- as the old moon wanes, and the new is born;-that is, when the month ends and begins, the sun being conjoined with the moon at the time of his coming. the seer says to the suitors (o. xiv. 353):- ah, wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer, shrouded in night are your heads and your faces and knees, and kindled is the voice of wailing and the path is full of phantoms and full is the court, the shadows of men hasting hellwards beneath the gloom, and the sun is perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has overspread the world. he closely observed the nature of the winds, how they arise from the moist element. for the water transformed goes into air. the wind is air in motion. this he shows in very many places, and where he says (o. v. 478):- the force of the wet winds blew,-he arranged the order of their series (o. v. 295):- the east wind and the south wind clashed and the stormy west and the north that is born in the bright air, welling onwards a great wave. of these one comes from the rising, one from the midday quarter, one from the setting, one from the north. and subsolanus, being humid, changes into the south, which is warm. and the south, rarefying, is changed into the east; but the east, becoming further rarefied, is purified into the north wind, therefore (o. v. 385):- she roused the swift north and brake the waves before him. their contention he explains naturally (o. v. 331):- now the south would toss it to the north to carry, and now again the east would yield it to the west. he knew besides that the north pole is suspended over the earth, and how it weighs on the men who dwell in that climate. but the south pole, on the contrary, is profound; as when he says of the north pole (o. v. 296):- and the north that is born in the bright air rolling on a great wave on the southwest wind. (o. iii. 295):- where the southwest wind drives a great wave against the left headland." for by saying "rolling" he notes the force of the wave rushing on from above, but the wind "driving" signifies a force applied to what is higher, coming from what is lower. that the generation of rains comes from the evaporation of the humid, he demonstrates, saying (i. xi. 54):- who sent from heav'n a show'r of blood-stained rain,-and (i. xvi. 459):- but to the ground some drops of blood let fall,-for he had previously said (i. vii. 329):- whose blood, beside scamander's flowing stream, fierce mars has shed, while to the viewless shade their spirits are gone,-where it is evident that humors of this sort exhaled from the waters about the earth, mixed with blood, are borne upward. the same argument is found in the following (i. xvi. 385):-as in the autumnal season when the earth with weight of rain is saturate,--for then the sun on account of the dryness of the ground draws out humors from below and brings from above terrestrial disturbances. the humid exhalations produce rains, the dry ones, winds. when the wind is in impact with a cloud and by its force rends the cloud, it generates thunder and lightning. if the lightning falls, it sends a thunderbolt. knowing this our poet speaks as follows (i. xvii. 595):- his lightnings flash, his rolling thunders roar. and in another place (o. xii. 415):- in that same hour zeus thundered and cast his bolt upon the ship. justly thinking men consider that gods exist, and first of all homer. for he is always recalling the gods (i. i. 406):- the blessed gods living a happy life. for being immortal they have an easy existence and an inexhaustible abundance of life. and they do not need food of which the bodies of mortal men have need (i. v. 341):- they eat no bread, they drink no ruddy wine, and bloodless and deathless they become. but poetry requires gods who are active; that he may bring the notion of them to the intelligence of his readers he gives bodies to the gods. but there is no other form of bodies than man's capable of understanding and reason. therefore he gives the likeness of each one of the gods the greatest beauty and adornment. he has shown also that images and statues of the gods must be fashioned accurately after the pattern of a man to furnish the suggestion to those less intelligent, that the gods exist. but the leader and head of all these, the chief god the best philosophers think, is without a body, and is rather comprehensible by the intelligence. homer seems to assume this; by him zeus is called (i. iv. 68):- the sire of gods and men. o father ours, son of kronos, chief of the greater beings. and zeus himself says (i. viii. 27):- as much as i am better than gods and men. and athene says of him (i. viii. 32):- well do we know thy power invincible. if it is necessary to ask how he knew that god was an object of the intelligence, it was not directly shown, as he was using poetic form combined with myth. yet we can gather it from the things he says (i. i. 498):- the all-seeing son of saturn there she found sitting apart. and where he himself says (i. xx. 22):- yet he will upon olympus' lofty ridge remain and view serene the combat." that solitude and the not mingling with the other gods, but being gladly by himself and using leisure for one directing and ordering all things, these constitute the character of an "intelligible" god. he knew besides that god is mind and understands all things, and governs all. for censuring poseidon, he says (i. xiii. 354):- equal the rank of both, their birth the same, but jupiter in wisdom as in years the first. and this expression frequently is used "when he again thought over other things." this shows that he was ever in thought. but to the mind of god pertain providence and fate, concerning which the philosophers have spoken much. the stimulus to this came from homer,--why should any one insist on the providence of the gods? since in all his poetry not only do they speak to one another on behalf of men, but descending on the earth they associate with men. a few things we shall look at for the sake of illustrations; among these is zeus speaking to his brother (i. xx. 20):- the purpose, neptune, well thou know'st thyself for which i called thee; true, they needs must die, but still they claim my care. and in other places (i. xxii. 168):- a woful sight mine eyes behold: a man i love in plight around the walls! my heart for hector grieves. he refers to the royal dignity of the gods and their loving care of men, saying (o. i. 65):- how should i forget divine odysseus, who in understanding is beyond mortals, and beyond all men hath done sacrifice to the deathless gods who keep the wide heaven? how he makes the gods mingling with and working with men themselves it is possible to learn completely in many passages for just as he represents athene once helping achilles and always aiding odysseus, so he represents hermes helping priam, and again odysseus, for he says (o. xvii. 485):- yea even the gods, in the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all manner of shapes, and wander through cities to watch the violence and the righteousness of men. it is the characteristic of divine providence to wish men to live justly. this the poet indicates very clearly (o. xiv. 83):- verily it is not forward deeds the gods love, but they reverence justice and the righteous acts of men. and (o. xvi. 386):- when jove pours down his fiercest storms in wrath to men, who in their courts unrighteous judgments pass. then just as he introduces the gods caring for men, so he represents men as mindful of them in every crisis. as the leader, succeeding in an action, says (i. viii. 526):- hopeful to jove i pray, and all the gods to chase from hence these fate-inflicted hounds. and in danger (i. xvii. 646):- father jove, from o'er the sons of greece, remove this cloudy darkness. and again when one has slayed another (i. xxii. 379):- since heaven has granted us this man to slay. and dying (i. xxii. 358):- but see i bring not down upon thy head the wrath of heaven. from what other place than here did originate that doctrine of the stoics? i mean this, that the world is one and in it both gods and men minister, sharing in justice by their nature. for when he says (i. xx. 4):- then jove to themis gave command to call the gods to council from the lofty height of many ridg'd olympus. why, lord of lightning, hast thou summoned here the gods of council, dost thou aught desire touching the greeks and trojans? what does this mean except that the world is conducted by civilized laws and the gods consult under the presidency of the father of gods and men? his opinion on fate he shows clearly in his poems (i. vi. 488):- dearest, wring not thus my heart, for till my day of destiny is come no man may take my life, and when it comes nor brave, nor coward can escape that day. but among the other things in which he confirms the power of fate, he thinks as the most-approved philosophers have thought after him,--plato, aristotle, and theophrastus,--that not all things happen by fate, but some things are in the power of men, the choice of whom is free. the same man in a way acts as he desires and falls into what he does not desire. and this point of view he has clearly expounded in many places, as in the beginning of each of his poems: in the "iliad" saying the wrath of achilles was the cause of the destruction of the greeks and that the will of zeus was fulfilled; in the "odyssey" that the comrades of odysseus went to their destruction by their own folly. for they had offended by touching the sacred oxen of the sun, although they could have abstained from doing so. yet it was foreordained (o. xi. 110):- but if thou hurtest them, i signify ruin for thy ships, and for thy men, and even though thou shalt thyself escape. if thou doest them no hurt and art careful to return, so may ye yet reach ithaca, albeit in evil case. so not to violate them depended on themselves, but that those who had done the evil should perish follows from fate. it is possible to avoid what happens accidentally by foresight as he shows in the following (o. v. 436):- then of a truth would luckless odysseus have perished beyond what was ordained had not gray-eyed athene given him some counsel. he rushed in and with both his hands clutched the rock whereto he clung till the great wave went by. then on the other hand running a great danger as he was, he had perished by fortune; yet by prudence he was saved. just as about divine things there are many divine reasonings in the philosophers taking their origin from homer, so also with human affairs it is the same. first we will take up the subject of the soul. the most noble of the doctrines of pythagoras and plato is that the soul is immortal. to it in his argument plato affixed wings. who first determined this? homer says this among other things (i. xvi. 856):-but the soul flying on its members came to hades,--i.e. into a formless and invisible place, whether you think it in the air or under the earth. but in the "iliad" he makes the soul of patroclus stand by the side of achilles (i. xxiii. 65):- the soul of wretched patroclus came. he makes a small speech for him in which he says this (i. xxiii. 72):- the spirits and spectres of departed men drove me from them, nor allow to cross the abhorred river. in the "odyssey" through the whole account of the descent to hades what else does he show but that souls survive after death, and when they drink blood can speak. for he knows that blood is the food and drink of the spirit, but spirit is the same thing as soul or the vehicle of the soul. 123. most clearly he reveals that he considers man is nothing else but soul, where he says (o. xi. 90):- there came up the soul of the theban tiresias having a golden sceptre. purposely he changes the word for soul to the masculine, to show that it was tiresias. and afterward (o. xi. 601):- and after him i described the mighty heracles, his phantom i say; but as for himself he hath joy at the banquet among the deathless gods. for here again he showed that the semblance thrown off from the body appeared, but no longer connected with its matter. the purest part of the soul had gone away; this was heracles himself. 124. whence that seems to philosophers a probable theory that the body is in a way the prison house of the soul. and this homer first revealed; that which belongs to the living he calls [greek omitted] (from "binding") as in this line (i. i. 115):- not the body nor the nature. o. iv. 196:- a body came to the woman. o. xvi. 251:- by my form, my virtue, my body. but that which has put off the soul he calls nothing else but body as in these lines (i. vii. 79):- to bring home my body again. and (o. xxiv. 187):- the bodies lie uncared for in the hall of odysseus. o. xi. 53:- and we left the body in the house of circe. for the same thing, while a man lives, was the bond of the soul; when he dies it is left, as it were, his monument. to this is related also another doctrine of pythagoras, namely, that the souls of the dead pass into other forms of bodies. this did not escape homer's notice, for he made hector talking with horses, and antilochus and achilles himself not only talking with them but listening to them, and a dog recognizing odysseus before men, even before his intimates. what other thing is he establishing but a community of speech and a relation of soul between men and beasts? besides, there are those who ate up the oxen of the sun and after this fell into destruction. does he not show that not only oxen but all other living creatures, as sharers of the same common nature, are beloved by the gods? the change of the comrades of odysseus into swine and that type of animal signifies this, that the souls of undeserving men are changed into the likeness of brute beasts; they fall into the circular periphery of the whole, which he calls circe; whereas she is justly represented as the child of the sun, dwelling in the island of aeaea, for this word [greek omitted] is so called because men lament and wail by reason of death. but the prudent man odysseus did not suffer the change, because from hermes, i.e. reason, he had received immortality. he went down into hades, as it were, dissolving and separating the soul from the body, and became a spectator of souls both good and bad. the stoics define the soul as a cognate spirit, sensible to exhalations. it has its origin from the humid portions of the body. in this they follow homer, who says (i. ix. 609).- while the breath abides in the breast. and again (i. xxiii. 100):- vanish'd like smoke, the spirit beneath the earth. here he makes the vital spirit, being humid, a breath; when it is extinguished he likens it to smoke. and the word "spirit" itself he uses for soul (i. xv. 262):- his words fresh vigor in the chief infus'd. and (i. iv. 524):- breathing away his spirit. and (i. xxii. 475):- but when her breath and spirit returned again. that is, she collected her distracted spirit (i. v. 697):- but soon revived, as on his forehead blew, while yet he gasped for breath, the cooling breeze. while his spirit was failing him in a faint, the outside breeze having a natural affinity to it brought him back to life. this argument is strengthened because for the external spirit he uses the word "soul," saying (i. xxiii. 440):- he turned aside with lightest breath. he wishes to say: "having got back his breath." plato and aristotle considered the soul incorporeal, but always associating with the body and needing it as a vehicle. on this account, then, it drew along the spiritual matter with it, oftentimes as an image, which had the shape of the body impressed upon it. so therefore homer is never in his poetry found calling the soul body, but to what is deprived of soul he always gives the name, as we have mentioned in what has gone before. the soul has, according to the views of the philosophers, a rational part, seated in the head, and an irrational part of which one element, the passionate, dwells in the heart and another, the appetitive, in the intestines. did not homer see this distinction when he made in the case of achilles, the rational struggling with the passionate, deliberating in the same moment whether he should drive off the one who had filled him with grief or should stay his anger (i. i. 193):- up to this time he revolved these things in his mind and heart, that is, the intelligent part and what is opposed to it? the emotional anger is represented by him as overcome by prudence. for the appearance of athene signifies this. and in these places he makes reason admonish the emotions, as a ruler giving orders to a subject (o. xx. 18):- endure my heart; yea, a baser thing thou once didst bear. and often the passionate element gives way to reason (i. xx. 22):- pallas indeed sat silent and though inly wroth with jove, yet answered not a word. likewise injury (i. xviii. 112):- though still my heart be sore, yet will i school my angry spirit down. sometimes he shows the passionate element getting the better of reason. this he does not praise, but openly blames; as when nestor speaks upbraiding the insult offered by agamemnon to achilles (i. ix. 108):- not by my advice i fain would have dissuaded thee; but thou, swayed by the promptings of a lofty soul, didst to our bravest wrong dishonoring him whom ev'n the immortals honor'd. achilles speaks like things to ajax (i. ix. 645):- all thou hast said hath semblance just and fair, but swells my heart with fury at the thought of him, of agamemnon, who, amid the greeks assembled, held me forth to scorn. so, too, reason is paralysed by fear, where hector deliberates whether he will abide the conflict with achilles (i. xxii. 129):- better to dare the fight and know at once to whom olympian jove the triumph wills, then he withdraws when he gets near achilles (i. xxii. 136):- nor dared he there await th' attack, but left the gates behind, and terror-stricken fled. it is also plain that he places the emotions about the heart. anger as (o. xx. 13):- the heart within barked for him. grief (i. xiv. 128):- how long, my son, wilt thou thy soul consume with grief an mourning? then fear (i. x. 95):- and leaps my troubled heart as tho' it would burst my bosom's bounds; my limbs beneath me shake. in the same way just as fear, so he declares daring to be about the heart (i. xvi. 11):- and fix'd in every breast the fierce resolve to wage unwearied war. from these passages the stoics took the opinion that the leading element is about the heart. that the appetitive element is placed in the intestines in many places he declares; in these verses, for example (o. xviii. 54):- but my belly's call is urgent on me, that evil worker,-and (o. xvii. 286):- but now may conceal a ravening belly, a thing accursed. and the causes which belong to the passionate element of the soul he says happen by nature. for wrath created by grief he shows is a kind of effervescence of the blood and the spirit in it as in the following (i. i. 103):- his dark soul filled with fury, and his eyes flashing like flames of fire. for he seemed to call spirit [greek omitted], i.e. wrath, and this in the case of those who are angry he thinks is extended and inflamed. again the spirit, if there is fear, is perturbed and made cold, generates tremors and terrors and pallors in the body. pallor, by the heat coursing into the interior ruddiness leaves the surface. tremor, because being, confined within the spirit it shakes the body. terror, because when the moisture is congealed the hairs are contracted and stand on end. all of these homer clearly indicates when he says (i. xv. 4):- pallid from fear. and (i. vii. 479):- pallid fear lay hold on him. (i. x. 95):- my valiant members tremble. and (i. xxiv. 358):- the old man heard, his mind confus'd with dread, so grievously he fear'd that every hair upon his bended head did stand on end. according to these passages for "feared" he says "frozen" and "fear" he calls "freezing." on the other hand, for "daring" and "courage" he uses [greek omitted], "heat." evil effects, he distinguishes in these ways. again when aristotle considers indignation a mercy among the generous emotions (for when good men are stirred because their neighors seem to succeed beyond their worth, it is called indignation. when they, beyond their desert, have misfortunes, it is called pity.) these two homer considers to belong, to the good, for he reckons them as belonging to zeus. other passages he has as well as the following (i. xi. 542):- but jove, high-throned, the soul of ajax filled with fear. and in other places he pities him being chased about the wall. what opinion the poet had about virtue and vice he shows in many places. for since one part of the soul is intelligent and rational, and the other devoid of reason and open to emotions, and on this account man has a middle position between god and brute, he thinks the highest, virtue, is divine, and the other extremity, evil, is brutelike. just as later on aristotle thought, he adopts these principles in his companions. for he always considers good men to be like gods, and as he says (i. ii. 167):- by a counsel not, unworthy of zeus. among the evil ones he names cowards (i. xiii. 102):- like to timid stags,-and to sheep without a shepherd and to hares in flight. about those borne headlong and heedlessly to anger (i. xvii. 20):- nor pard, nor lion, nor the forest boar, fiercest of beasts, and provident of his strength in their own esteem with panthous' sons for courage nor may vie. the laments of those grieving to no purpose he compares to the sounds of birds (o. xvi. 218):- where younglings the country folk have taken from the nest ere yet they are fledged. the stoics who place virtue in apathy follow the passages in which he takes up every feeling, saying about grief (i. xix. 218):- behoves us bury out of sight our dead, steeling our heart and weeping but a day. and (i. xvi. 7):- why weep over patroclus as a girl? about anger (i. xviii. 107):- may strife perish from gods and men. about fear (i. v. 252):- do not speak of fear, if thou thinkest to persuade me. and (o. xv. 494):- struck and smitten seeing fate and death, he fell heroicly from the sword. so those challenged to single combat obey fearlessly, and several arise to take the place of one. and the wounded man has none the less abiding courage. (i. xi. 388):- and now because thy shaft has grazed my foot, thou mak'st thy empty boast. and every valiant person is likened to a lion, boar, to a torrent and whirlwind. now the peripatetics think that freedom from emotion is unattainable by men. they bring in a certain mean; by taking away excess of feeling, they define virtue by moderation. and homer brings in the best men neither feeble nor altogether fearless nor devoid of pain, but yet differing from the worst in not being overcome extravagantly by their feelings. for he says (i. xiii. 279):- the cowards color changes, nor his soul within his heart its even balance keeps but changing still, from foot to foot he shifts, and in his bosom loudly beats his heart expecting death; and chatter all his teeth. the brave man's color changes not with fear, he knows the ambush ent'ring. for it is evident that by taking away excessive fear from the good man he leaves the mean between the two. the same must be thought about the like emotions, pain and anger. to this effect is that verse of his (i. vii. 215):- the trojans' limbs beneath them shrank with fear, e'en hector's heart beat quicker in his breast, the others, even at the sight, trembled. but he, in the midst of dangers being brave, was only troubled. so he makes dolon and lycaon feeling fear; ajax and menelaus, turning gradually and going away step by step, as lions driven from their quarry. in the same way he shows the differences of those who grieve and also of those who rejoice. as odysseus, relating the way he deceived the cyclops, says (o. ix. 413):- my heart within me laughed. the suitors seeing the beggar laying on the ground (o. xviii. 100):- but the proud wooers threw up their hands, and cried outright for laughter. but in more trivial matters the difference of moderation appears. odysseus though loving his wife, and seeing her lamenting on his account, contains himself (o. xix. 211):- his eyes kept steadfast between his eyelids as it were horn or iron. but the suitors who were in love with her when they saw her (o. xviii. 212):- and straightways the knees of the wooers were loosened, and their hearts were enchanted with love, and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bedfellow. such is the poet's treatment of the powers and passions of the soul. although there are various things said by the philosophers about the chief end of virtue and happiness, it is agreed by all that virtue of the soul is the greatest of goods. but the stoics consider that virtue by itself is sufficient for happiness, taking the cue from the homeric poems in which he has made the wisest and most prudent man on account of virtue despising trouble and disregarding pleasure. as to the first point in this way (o. iv. 242):- now all of them i could not tell or number, so many as were the adventures of the patient odysseus. he bruised himself with unseemly stripes and cast a sorry covering over his shoulders, and in the fashion of a servant he went into the wide-wayed city of the foemen. and as to the second, i.e. (o. ix. 29):- vainly calypso, the fair goddess, would fain have kept me with her in her hollow caves longing to have me for her lord. circe of aia would have stayed me in her halls, longing to have me for her lord. but never did they prevail upon my heart within my breast. especially does he expound his opinion of virtue in the passages in which he makes achilles not only brave but most beautiful in form, and swiftest of foot, and most illustrious in birth and distinguished in race and aided by the chiefest of the gods; and odysseus understanding and firm in soul--in other respects not enjoying an equal fortune. his stature and aspect not conspicuous, his parentage not altogether noteworthy, his country obscure, hated by a god who was all but first. none of these things prevented him from being famous, from gaining the chief good of the soul. but the peripatetic school think the goods of the soul have the pre-eminence, such as prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice. afterward are those of the body, such as health, strength, beauty, swiftness; and there are besides external goods such as reputation, nobility, wealth. for they think any one worthy of praise and admiration if he, fortified by the protective virtues of the soul, holds out against evils in the midst of sufferings, disease, want, unforeseen accidents, but that this situation is not a desirable nor a happy one. for not only the possession of virtue do they think good, but its use and its activity. and these distinctions homer directly showed, for he always makes the gods (o. viii. 325):- the givers of good things,-these things also men pray the gods to furnish them, as being plainly neither useless to them nor indifferent, but advantageous to happiness. what the goods are men aim at, and through which they are called happy, he declares in many places. but all of them together were centred in hermes (i. xxiv. 376):- blessed are thy parents in a son so grac'd, in face and presence, and of mind so wise. he bears witness to his beauty of body, his intelligence, and his lineage. separately he takes them up (i. vi. 156):- on whom the gods bestowed the gifts of beauty and of manly grace, and zeus poured out lordly wealth,-for this, too, is a gift of god (o. vi. 188):- for zeus himself gives prosperity to mortals. sometimes he esteems honor a good (i. viii. 540):- would that i might be adored as athene and apollo. sometimes good fortune in children (o. iii. 196):- so good a thing it is that a son of the dead should be left. sometimes, too, the benefit of one's family (o. xiii. 39):- pour ye the drink offering, and send me safe on my way, and as for you, fare ye well. for now i have all my heart's desire,--an escort and loving gifts. may the gods of heaven give me good fortune with them and may i find my noble wife in my home, and my friends unharmed while ye, for your part, abide here, and make glad your gentle wives and children, and may the gods vouchsafe all manner of good and may no evil come, nigh the people. that in a comparison of goods valor is better than wealth, he shows in the following (i. ii. 872):- with childish folly to the war he came, laden with stress of gold; yet naught availed his gold to save him from the doom of death. and (o. iv. 93):- i have no joy of my lordship among these my possessions. and that intelligence is better than beauty of form (o. viii. 169):- for one man is feebler than another in presence, yet the gods crown his words with beauty. it is evident that bodily excellence and external things he considers as good, and that without these virtue alone is not sufficient for happiness he declares in the following way. he created two men who attained to the height of virtue, nestor and odysseus, different indeed from one another, but like one another in prudence and valor and power of eloquence. he has made them not at all equal in fortune, but on the side of nestor he has placed the gods (o. iv. 208):- right easily is known that man's seed for whom cronion weaves the skein of luck at bridal and at birth, even as now hath he granted prosperity to nestor forever, for all his days, that he himself should grow into smooth old age in his halls, and his sons moreover should be wise and the best of spearsmen. but odysseus, though shrewd and clever and prudent, he often calls unfortunate. for nestor goes back home quickly and safely, but odysseus wanders about for a long time and endures constantly innumerable sufferings and dangers. so it is a desirable and blessed thing if fortune is at hand helping and not opposing virtue. how the possession of virtue is of no use unless it accomplishes something, is evident from the passages where patroclus complains to achilles and says (i. xvi. 31):- whoe'er may hope in future days by thee to profit, if thou now forbear to save the greeks from shame and loss. so he speaks to him because he makes his virtue useless by inactivity. achilles himself deplores his inactivity (i. xviii. 104:):- but idly here i sit cumb'ring the ground, i, who amid the greeks no equal own in fight,-for he laments because though possessing virtue he does not make use of it; but being indignant with the greeks (i. i. 490):- no more he sought the learned council, nor the battlefield; but wore his soul away, and only pined for the fierce joy and tumult of the fight. and so phoenix admonished him (i, ix. 433):- to teach thee how to frame befitting speech, and mighty deeds achieve. after his death he is indignant at that inertia, saying (o. xi. 489):- rather would i live upon the soil as the hireling of another with a lordless man who had no great livelihood, than bear sway among the dead that are no more. and he adds the cause (o. xi. 498):- for i am no longer his champion under the sun, so mighty a man as once i was, when in wide troy i slew the best of the host, succoring the argives. that saying of the stoics, that good men are friends of the gods, is taken from homer, who says about amphiaerus (o. xv. 245):- whom zeus, lord of the ages, and apollo loved with all manner of love. and of odysseus (o. iii. 52):- and athene rejoiced in the wisdom and judgment of the man. there is, too, an opinion of the same philosophic school that virtue is teachable, and has for its beginning good birth. for homer says (o. iv. 206):- and from such a sire thou too art sprung, wherefore thou dost even speak wisely. and by training it is brought to perfection. for virtue is the knowledge of living rightly, i.e. of doing the things which it is necessary for those who live well to do. these principles can also be found in homer, for he says (i. ix. 440):- inexperienced yet in war, that sorrow brings alike on all and sage debate in which attends renown. and in other places (i. vi. 446):- nor did my heart compel me, since i had learnt to be good, and phoenix says of achilles (i. ix. 442):- me then he sent, to teach thee how to frame befitting speech, and mighty deeds achieve. for since life is made up of acts and speech, therefore he says he was the young man's teacher in these things. from what has been said it is plain that he declares the whole of virtue to be teachable. so, then, homer is the first philosopher in ethics and in philosophy. now to the same science belongs arithmetic and music, which pythagoras especially honored. let us see whether these are mentioned by our poet. very often. a few examples from very many will suffice. for pythagoras thought number had the greatest power and reduced everything to numbers--both the motions of the stars and the creation of living beings. and he established two supreme principles,--one finite unity, the other infinite duality. the one the principle of good, the other of evil. for the nature of unity being innate in what surrounds the whole creation gives order to it, to souls virtue, to bodies health, to cities and dwellings peace and harmony, for every good thing is conversant with concord. the nature of duality is just the contrary,--to the air disturbance, to souls evil, to bodies disease, to cities and dwellings factions and hostilities. for every evil comes from discord and disagreement. so he demonstrates of all the successive numbers that the even are imperfect and barren; but the odd are full and complete, because joined to the even they preserve their own character. nor in this way alone is the odd number superior, but also added to itself it generates an even number. for it is creative, it keeps its original force and does not allow of division, since per se the mind is superior. but the even added to itself neither produces the odd nor is indivisible. and homer seems to place the nature of the one in the sphere of the good, and the nature of the dual in the opposite many times. often he declares a good man to be [greek omitted] "kind" and the adjective from it is "benignity"; as follows (i. ii. 204):- it is not good for many to reign, let there be but one ruler. and (o. iii. 127):- we never spake diversely either in the assembly or in the council, but always were of one mind. he always makes use of the uneven number as the better. for making the whole world to have five parts, three of these being the mean, he divides it (i. xv. 189):- threefold was our portion each obtained, his need of honor due. therefore, too, aristotle thought there were five elements, since the uneven and perfect number had everywhere the predominance. and to the heavenly gods he gives the uneven shares. for nestor nine times to poseidon sacrificed nine bulls; and tiresias bids odysseus sacrifice (o. xi. 131):- a ram and a bull and a boar, the mate of swine. but achilles immolated for patroclus, all in even numbers, four horses and (i. xxiii. 175):- twelve noble sons he slew, the sons of troy,-and of nine dogs he casts two on the pyre, in order to leave for himself seven. and in many places he uses the ternary, quinary, and septenary number, especially the number nine (i. vii. 161):- the old man spoke reproachfully; at his words uprose nine warriors. and (o. xi. 311):- at nine seasons old they were of breadth nine cubits, and nine fathoms in height. (i. i. 53):- nine days the heavenly archer on the troops hurl'd his dread shafts. and (i. vi 174):- nine days he feasted him, nine oxen slew. why pray, is the number nine the most perfect? because it is the square of the first odd number, and unevenly odd since it is divided into three triads, of which again each is divided into three units. but not only the virtue of numbers but a natural way of counting he showed, as in the catalogue of ships he made (i. ii. 509):- with these came fifty ships; and in each were sixscore youths, boeotia's noblest flow'r. and again (i. xvi. 170):- they were fifty men. whence it is possible to compute that as all the ships were near 1200, and each had 100 men, the whole number is 12 myriads--120,000. again speaking. of the trojans (i. viii. 563):- a thousand fires burnt brightly; and round each sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare. he enables one to compute that without counting allies they were 50,000 men. now music being closest to the soul, since it is a harmony produced by different elements, by melodies, and by rhythms, intensifies what is relaxed and relaxes the intense. the pythagoreans have clearly proved this, and before them homer. for he gives praise to music, in the case of the sirens, to which he adds the following (o. xii. 188) and had joy thereof and gone on his way the wiser. in another place he introduces in banquets the lyre, as among the suitors (o. xvii. 271):- and the voice of the lyre is heard there which the gods made to be mate of the feast. and at the house of alcinous the player on the lyre (o. vii. 266):- was composing a beautiful song. and at marriages (i. xviii. 495):- the pipes and lyres were sounding. and in the works of the vintage (i. xvii. 569):- a boy amid them, from a clear-ton'd pipe drew lovely music; well his liquid voice the strings accompanied. besides in war (i. x. 13):- of pipes and flutes he heard the sound. also he uses music to express grief (i. xxiv. 721):- poured forth the music of the mournful dirge, by the sweetness of melodies softening the bitterness of the soul. it is clear that melody is twofold,--one of the voice, the other of instruments, partly wind, partly string. of sound some are bass, some treble. these differences homer knew, since he represents women and boys with treble voices, by reason of the tenuity of their breath; men, he makes with bass voices. as in the following (i. xviii. 70):- she with bitter cry clasped in her hands his head, and sorrowing spoke. and again (i. ix. 16):- so with deep groans he thus addressed the greeks. but old men like the locusts (i. iii. 151) he compares to shrill-voiced creatures. instruments whose strings are thin and vibrate quickly, easily cut the air, and give an acute sound. those with thick ones, through the slow movement, have a deep sound. homer calls the pipe acute--acute because being thin it gives an acute sound. homer has this information about music. since we are speaking here about pythagoras, to whom taciturnity and not expressing those things which it is wrong to speak were especially pleasing, let us see whether homer had also this opinion. for about those drunken with wine he says (o. xiv. 466):- and makes him speak out a word which were better unsaid. and odysseus upbraids thersites (i. ii. 246):- thou babbling fool therites, prompt of speech, restrain thy tongue. and ajax speaks, blaming idomeneus (i. xxiii. 478):- but thou art ever hasty in thy speech. and ill becomes thee this precipitance and while the armies are entering the fight (i. iii. 2-8):- with noise and clarmor, as a flight of birds, the men of troy advanced, on th'other side the greeks in silence mov'd. clamor is barbaric, silence is greek. therefore he has represented the most prudent man as restrained, in speech. and odysseus exhorts his son (o. xvi. 300):- if in very truth thou art my son and of our blood, then let no man hear that odysseus is come home; neither let laertes know it nor the swineherd nor any of the household nor penelope herself. and again he exhorts him (o. xix. 42):- hold thy peace and keep all this in thine heart and ask not thereof. so the opinions of famous philosophers have their origin in homer. if it is necessary to mention those who elected for themselves certain individual views, we could find them taking their source in homer. democritus in constructing his "idola," or representative forms, takes the thought from the following passage (i. v. 449):- meanwhile apollo of the silver bow a phantom form prepar'd, the counterpart of great aeneas and alike in arms. others deviated into error in ways he would not approve of, but he represented them as fitting to the special time. for when odysseus was detained with alcinous, who lived in pleasure and luxury, he speaks to him in a complimentary way (o. ix. 5):- nay, as for me i say that there is no more gracious or perfect delight than when a whole people make merry, and the men sit orderly at feasts in the halls and listen to the singer, and the tables by them laden with food and flesh, and a winebearer drawing the wine serves it into the cups. the fashion seems to me the fairest thing in the world. led by these words, epicurus took up the opinion that pleasure was the summum bonum. and odysseus himself is at one time covered with a precious and thin woven garment, sometimes represented in rags with a wallet. now he is resting with calypso, now insulted by iros and melantheus. aristippus taking the model of this life not only struggled valiantly with poverty and toil, but also intemperately made use of pleasure. but it is possible to take these as specimens of homer's wisdom, because he first enunciated the many excellent sayings of the wise men, as "follow god" (i. i. 218):- who hears the gods, of them his prayers are heard, and "nothing too much" (o. xv. 70):- i think it shame even in another heart, who loves overmuch or hates overmuch; measure is in all things best. and the expression (o. viii. 351):- a pledge is near to evil, evil are evil folks' pledges to hold. and that saying of pythagoras to one who asked who is a friend said "an alter ego." homer's parallel saying is (o. xviii. 82):- the equal to my head. belonging to the same species of apothegm is what is called the gnome, a universal expression about life stated briefly. all poets and philosophers and orators have used it and have attempted to explain things gnomically. homer was the first to introduce in his poetry many excellent gnomes stating a principle he wishes to lay down; as when he says (i. i. 80):- and terrible to men of low estate the anger of a king. and again what must needs be done or not done (i. ii 24):- to sleep all night but ill becomes a chief. of homer's many good sayings and admonitions not a few afterward have been paraphrased. some examples of these should find a place here; as the following passage of homer (i. xv. 104):- fools are we all, who madly strive with jove, or hope, by access to his throne, to sway by word or deed his course! from all apart, he all our counsels heeds not, but derides! and boasts o'er all the immortal gods to reign. prepare, then, each his several woes to bear. like this is a saying of pythagoras:- whatever pains mortals have from the gods, whatever fate thou hast, bear it nor murmur. and also these words of euripides:- nor is it fitting to be indignant at events, no good comes of it; but when things go wrong, if one bears them right, they do go well. again homer says (i. xxiv. 128):- how long, my son, wilt thou thy soul consume with grief and mourning? so pythagoras:- spare thy life, do not wear out thy soul. then homer says (o. xviii. 136):- for the spirit of men upon the earth is even as their day, that comes upon them from the father of gods and men. archilochus, who imitates other things of homer, has paraphrased this too, saying:- such for mortal men, o glaucus, son of leptineus, is their mind, as zeus directs for a day. and in other words, homer says (i. xiii. 730):- to one the gods have granted warlike might, while in another's breast all-seeing jove hath plac'd the spirit of wisdom and mind discerning for the common good of all. by him are states preserved! and he himself best knows the value of the precious gift. euripides has followed this original:- cities are well ordered by the instructions of one man. so, too, a house. one again is mighty in war. for one wise judgment conquers many hands, but ignorance with a crowd brings the most evil. where he makes idomeneus exhorting his comrade, he says (i. xii. 322):- o friend, if we survivors of this war could live from age and death forever free, thou shouldst not see me foremost in the fight, nor would i urge thee to the glorious field; but since in man ten thousand forms of death attend, which none may 'scape, then on that we may glory in others' gain, or they on us! aeschylus saying after him:- nor receiving many wounds in his heart does any one die, unless the goal of life is run. nor does any one sitting by the hearth flee any better the decreed fate. in prose, demosthenes speaks as follows (o. xviii. 9):- for all mortals, death is the end of life even if one keeps himself shut up in a cell; it is necessary ever for good men to attempt noble things and bravely to bear whatever god may give. again take homer (i. iii. 65):- the gifts of heav'n are not to be despis'd. sophocles paraphrases this, saying:- this is god's gift; whatever the gods may give, one must never avoid anything, my son. in homer there are the words (i. i. 249):- from whose persuasive lips. sweeter than honey flowed the stream of speech. theocritus said (i. vii. 82):- therefore the muse poured in his mouth sweet nectar. how, also, aratus paraphrased this (i. xviii. 489):- sole star that never bathes in th' ocean wave,-saying:- the bears protected from cerulean ocean. (i. xv. 628):- they win their soul from death, is paraphrased:- he escaped hades by a small peg. let this be enough on this subject. but civil discourse belongs to the rhetorical art, with which it seems homer was first to be familiar. if rhetoric is the power of persuasive speaking, who more than homer depended on this power? he excels all in eloquence; also in the grasp of his subject he reveals an equal literary power. and the first part of this art is arrangement, which he exhibits in all his poetry, and especially at the beginning of his narratives. for he did not make the beginning of the "iliad" at a distant period, but at the time when affairs were developing with energy and had come to a head. the more inactive periods, which came into past time, he goes over in other places succinctly. the same he did in the "odyssey," beginning from the close of the times of odysseus's wanderings, in which it was clearly time to bring in telemachus and to show the haughty conduct of the suitors. whatever happened to odysseus in his wanderings before this he introduces into odysseus's narrative. these things he prefers to show as more probable and more effective, when said by the one who experienced them. as therefore all orators make use of introductory remarks to get the benevolent attention of their audience, so our poet makes use of exordiums fitted to move and reach the hearer. in the "iliad" he first declares that he is about to say how many evils happened to the achaeans through the wrath of achilles and the high-handed conduct of agamemnon; and in the "odyssey" how many labors and dangers odysseus encountered and surmounted all of them by the judgment and perseverance of his soul. and in each one of the exordiums he invokes the muse that she may make the value of what is said greater and more divine. while the characters introduced by him are made to say many things either to their relatives or friends or enemies or the people, yet to each he assigns a fitting type of speech, as in the beginning he makes chryseis in his words to the greeks use a most appropriate exordium. first he desires for them that they may be superior to their enemies and may return home, in order that he might gain their kindly feeling. then he demands his daughter. but achilles being angered by the threat of agamemnon combines a speech for the greeks and for himself, in order to make them more friendly disposed. for, he says, all had proceeded to the war, not on account of some private enmity, but to please agamemnon himself and his brother, and he went on to say he had done many things himself and had received a present not from agamemnon and menelaus, but from the whole body of the greeks. agamemnon replying to him has no difficulty in winning the crowd. for when achilles says he means to sail back home, on account of the insult he has received, he does not say "go" but "flee," changing what is said abruptly into an attack on achilles reputation. and his words are:- i do not exhort you to remain; there are here who value me. and this was agreeable to his hearers. and afterward he introduces nestor, whom he had previously called sweet in speech and a shrewd orator (i. i. 249):- whose voice flowed from his tongue sweeter than honey. there could be no greater praise for an orator. he starts off with an exordium by which he tries to change the minds of the contesting chiefs, bidding them consider by opposing one another they give occasion of joy to their enemies. he goes on to admonish both and to exhort them to give heed to him as their elder. and by telling one to be prudent, he says what gratifies the other. he advises agamemnon not to take away what has been given to a man who has labored much; achilles, not to strive with the king who is his superior. and he gives suitable praise to both: to the one as ruling over more people; to the other, as having more prowess. in this way he seeks to moderate them. again, in what follows, when agamemnon saw the dream bearing good hopes to him from zeus, and exhorting him to arm the greeks, did he not use rhetorical art speaking to the multitude, saying the contrary of what he wishes, to try their feeling and to see if they will be disgusted by being compelled to do battle for him. but he speaks to please them. another of the men able to influence them bids them stay in their tents, as if the king really wished this. for to those he speaks to he indicates that he desires the contrary. odysseus taking up these words, and making use of a convenient freedom, persuades the leaders by his mild language; the common people he compels by threats to heed their superiors. stopping the mutiny and agitation of the crowd, he persuades all by his shrewd words, moderately blaming them for not carrying out what they promised, and at the same time excusing them on the ground that they have been idle for some time and have been deprived of what is dearest to them. he persuades them to remain by the hope of the seer's prophecy. likewise nestor, using arguments unchanged indeed but tending to the same end, and also using greater freedom to those who have been spoilt by inaction, brings over the crowd. he places the blame of their negligence on a few unworthy people and advises the rest. he threatens the disobedient and immediately takes counsel with the king as to how the forces are to be drawn up. again, when in the deeds of war the greeks have partly succeeded and partly failed and been reduced to terror, diomed, since he has the audacity of youth and freedom of speech by reason of his success, before he had shown his valor, took the king's reproof in silence, but afterward he turns on agamemnon as if he had counselled flight through cowardice. for he says (i. ix. 32):- atrides i thy folly must confront, as is my right in council! thou, o king, be not offended. in his speech he tries to advise him and at the same time deprecate his anger. he then recites the things just performed by him, without envy, saying (i. ix. 36):- how justly so is known to all the greeks both young and old. afterward he exhorts the greeks, giving them indirect praise (i. ix. 40):- how canst thou hope the sons of greece shall prove such heartless cowards as thy words suppose? and he shames agamemnon, excusing him if he wishes to depart, saying the others will be sufficient, or if all flee, he will remain alone with his comrade and fight (i. ix. 48):- yet i and sthenelaus, we two, will fight. nestor commends the excellence of his judgment and his actions. as to the aim of the council he considers that, as the eldest, he has the right to offer advice. and he continues endeavoring to arrange for sending ambassadors to achilles. and in the embassy itself he makes the speakers employ different devices of arguments. for odysseus, at the opening of his speech, did not say immediately that agamemnon repented the taking away of briseis, and would give the girl back, and that he was giving some gifts immediately and promised the rest later. for it was not useful, while his feelings were excited, to remember these things. but first he wished to provoke achilles to sympathize with the misfortunes of the greeks. then he suggests that later on he will want to remedy these disasters and will not be able to. after this he recalls to him the advice of peleus; removing any resentment toward himself, he attributes it to the character of his father as being more able to move him. and when he seemed mollified, then he mentioned the gifts of agamemnon and again goes back to entreaties on behalf of the greeks, saying that if agamemnon is justly blamed, at least it was a good thing to save those who had never injured him. it was necessary to have a peroration of this kind containing nothing to irritate the hearer. he specifically recalls the purpose of the speech. the final exhortation has something to stir him against the enemy, for they are represented as despising him. "for now you can take hector if he stands opposed to you! since he says none of the greeks is his equal." but phoenix, fearing that he has used less entreaties than were befitting, sheds tears. and first he agrees with his impulse, saying he will not leave him if he sails away. this was pleasant for him to hear. and he tells achilles how peleus intrusted phoenix to bring achilles up, taking him as a child, and how he was thought worthy to be his teacher in words and deeds. in passing he relates achilles' youthful errors, showing how this period of life is inconsiderate. and proceeding he omits no exhortation, using briefly all rhetorical forms, saying that it is a good thing to be reconciled with a suppliant, a man who has sent gifts, and has despatched the best and most honored ambassadors; that he himself was worthy to be heard, being his tutor and teacher; that if he let the present occasion go, he would repent. he makes use of the example of meleager who, when called upon to help his fatherland, did not heed until by the necessity of the calamities that overtook the city he turned to defend, it. but ajax used neither entreaty nor pity, but freedom of speech. he determined to remove achilles' haughtiness partly by blaming him seasonably, partly by exhorting him genially not to be completely embittered. for it befitted his excellency in virtue. replying to each of these achilles shows nobility and simplicity. the others he refutes cleverly and generously by bringing out worthy causes of his anger; to ajax he excuses himself. and to odysseus he says that he will sail away on the following day; then being stirred by the entreaties of phoenix, he says he will take counsel about leaving. moved by the free speech of ajax, he confesses all that he intends to do: that he will not go forth to fight until hector gets as far as his tents and the ships, after killing many of the greeks. then he says, "i think i shall stop hector no matter how earnestly he fights." and this argument he offers in rebuttal to odysseus about resisting the onslaught of hector. in the words of phoenix he shows that there is such a thing as the art of rhetoric. for he says to achilles that he had taken him over (i. ix. 440):- inexperienced yet in war that sorrow brings alike on all and sage debate, on which attends renown me then he sent, to teach thee how to frame befitting speech and mighty deeds achieve. these words show that the power of speech especially makes men renowned. it is besides possible to find in many other parts of his poems passages pertaining to the art of rhetoric. for he shows the method of accusation and purgation elsewhere and in the place where hector taxes his brother, accusing him of cowardice and dissoluteness. because he had this character, he had injured those who were far different from him; so he had become the cause of evil to his family. and alexander softens his brothers' temper by confessing he was rightly blamed; he wipes off the charge of cowardice by promising to meet menelaus in combat. and that homer was a skilful speaker, no one in his right mind would deny, for it is all clear from reading his poems. he did not overlook to give certain types to his speakers. he introduces nestor as agreeable and attractive to his hearers; menelaus, fond of brevity, attractive, and sticking to his subject; odysseus, abundant subtility of speech. these things antenor testifies about the two heroes; he had heard them when they came to ilium as ambassadors. and these characteristics of speech homer himself introduces, displaying them in all his poetry. he was acquainted with antithesis in eloquence. this in every subject introduces the contrary, and proves and disproves the same thing by clever handling of the art of logic. for he says (i. xx. 248):- for glibly runs the tongue, and can at will give utt'rance to discourse in every vein; wide is the range of language, and such words as one may speak, another may return. he knew how to say the same things at length, and to repeat them briefly, which is called recapitulation, and is used by orators whenever it is necessary to recall briefly the numerous things which have been said. for what odysseus related in four books in the phaeacians, these he goes over again shortly in the passage beginning (o. xxiii. 310):- he began by setting forth how he overcame the cicones, etc. but civil discourse embraces also knowledge of laws. no one can really say whether the word "law" was used in his time. some say that he certainly knew it, for he said (o. xvii. 487):- to watch the violence and righteousness of men. aristachus says the word "righteousness" ([greek omitted]) comes from the words "to distribute well." hence law ([greek omitted]) seems to be called, because it distributes ([greek omitted]) equal parts to all or to each according to his worth. but that he knew the force of law was conserved, if not in writing at least in the opinion of men, he shows in many ways. for he makes achilles talking about the sceptre say (i. i. 237):- and now 'tis borne, emblem of justice, by the sons of greece, who guard the sacred ministry of law before the face of jove. for usages and customs, the laws of which zeus is reported as the lawgiver, with whom minos the king of the cretans had converse men say; which converse is, as plato bears witness, the learning of the laws. clearly in his poems he reveals that it is necessary to follow the laws and not to do wrong (o. xviii. 141):- wherefore let no man forever be lawless any more, but keep quietly the gifts of the gods, whatsoever they may give. homer first of all divided into different parts civil polity. for in the shield which was made in imitation of the whole world by hephaestus (that is, spiritual power) he imagined two cities to be contained: one enjoying peace and happiness; the other at war, and exposing the advantages of each he shows that the one life is civil and the other military. neither did he pass over even the agricultural. but he showed this, too, making it clear and beautiful in his language. in every city it is sanctioned by the law that there is to be a meeting of a council to consider before the popular assembly is called together. this is evident from the words of homer (i. ii. 53):- but first of all the elders a secret conclave agamemnon called. agamemnon collects the elders, and examines with them how to arm the people for the fight. and that it is necessary for the leader before all things to care for the salvation of the whole, he teaches in his characters by the advice he gives (i. ii. 24):- to sleep all night but ill becomes a chief. and how it is necessary for subjects to obey their leader, and how the commander should bear himself toward each class; odysseus shows this, persuading the superior class by soft words, but using toward the crowd bitter words of rebuke. to rise up for one's superiors is sanctioned in all laws. this the gods themselves do in the case of zeus (i. i. 535):- at his entrance all rose from their seats at once; not one presumed to wait his coming. there is a rule among most that the eldest shall speak. diomed by necessity of the war having dared to speak first, requests to be pardoned (i. xiv. 111):- nor take offence that i, the youngest of all, presume to speak. and it is an universal rule that voluntary offences are punished and involuntary ones are excused. this, too, the poet shows, in what the minstrel says (o. xxii. 350):- and telemachus will testify of this, thine own dear son, that not by mine own will or desire did i resort to thy house to sing to the wooers after their feasts; but being so many and stronger than i, they led me by constraint. there are three forms of polity intended to attain justice and good laws,--royalty, aristocracy, and democracy. to these are opposed three which end in injustice and lawlessness,--tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule. homer does not seem ignorant of these. throughout his whole poem he names kingly rule and praises it; for example (i. ii. 196):- for fierce his anger, and the lord of counsel, jove, from whom proceeds all honor, loves him well. and what sort of a man a king must be, he plainly reveals (o. ii. 236):- be kind and gentle with all his heart. and (o. iv. 690):- one that wrought no iniquity toward any man, nor spake aught unrighteous in the township, as is the wont of divine kings. and severally where he enumerates five kings of the boeotians, and among the phaeacians (o. viii. 390):- behold there are twelve glorious princes who rule among this people and bear sway, and i myself am the thirteenth. the image of democracy he shows clearly on the shield, in which he makes two cities. the one he says is ruled democratically, since they have no leader, yet all by their own will conduct themselves according to the laws; then, too, he introduces a trial proceeding. and he exhibits a democracy when he says (o. xvi. 425):- in fear of the people, for they were exceedingly wroth against him, because he had followed with topheon sea-robbers and harried the thesprotians, who were at peace with us. a man ruling with violence and contrary to the laws he does not call a tyrant, for the name is of more recent date. but his nature he exhibits in his deeds (o. vxiii. 85):- and send thee to the mainland to echetus the king, the maimer of all mankind, who will cut off thy nose and ears with the pitiless steel. and he shows aegisthus tyrannical, who killed agamemnon and lorded over mycenae. and when he was killed he says he would have had no sepulchre if menelaus had been there. for this was the custom with tyrants (o. iii. 258):- then even in his death would they not have heaped the piled earth over him, but dogs and fowls of the air would have devoured him as he lay on the plain far from the town: so dread was the deed he contrived. oligarchy he seems to show in the ambition of the suitors, about whom he says (o. i. 247):- as many as lord it in rocky ithaca. he describes the mob rule in the trojan government in which all are accomplices of alexander and all are involved in misfortunes. priam accuses his sons of being the cause (i. xxiv. 253):- haste, worthless sons, my scandal and my shame! and also another trojan, antimachus (i. xi. 124):- 'twas he who chief seduc'd by paris' gold and splendid gifts advis'd the restitution to refuse of helen to her lord. it is esteemed just among men to distribute to each according to his worth. this principle concerns especially reverencing the gods, and honoring parents and relations. piety toward the gods he teaches in many passages, introducing the heroes sacrificing, praying, offering gifts to the gods, and celebrating them in hymns, and as a reward for their piety they receive from the gods. honor to parents he shows especially, in the character of telemachus, and in his praise of orestes (o. i. 298):-- or hast thou not heard what renown the goodly orestes got among all men in that he slew the slayer of his father? for parents to be cared for in their old age by their children is just by nature and a debt of retribution; this he showed in one passage where he says (i. xvii. 302):- not destin'd he his parents to repay their early care. the good will and good faith of brothers to one another he shows in agamemnon and menelaus, of friends in achilles and patroclus, prudence and wifely love in penelope, the longing of a man for his wife in odysseus. how we should act toward our country he showed especially in these words (i. xii. 243):- the best of omens is our country's cause. and how citizens should share a common friendship (i. ix. 63):- outcast from kindred, law, and hearth is he whose soul delights in fierce, internal strife. that truthfulness is honorable and the contrary to be avoided (i. ix. 312):- him as the gates of hell my soul abhors where outward speech his secret thought belies. and (o. xviii. 168):- who speak friendly with their lips, but imagine evil in the latter end. households are chiefly well ordered when the wife does not make a fuss over the undeclared plans of her husband nor without his counsel undertakes to do any thing. both he shows in the person of hera; the former he attributes to zeus as speaker (i. i. 545):- expect not juno, all my mind to know. and the latter hera herself speaks (i. xiv. 310):- lest it displease thee, if, to thee unknown, i sought the ocean's deeply flowing stream, there is a custom among all people for those who go to a war or who are in danger to send some message to their families. our poet was familiar with this custom. for andromache, bewailing hector, says (i. xxiv. 743):- for not to me was giv'n to clasp the hand extended from thy dying bed, nor words of wisdom catch, which night and day, with tears, i might have treasur'd in my heart. penelope recalls the commands of odysseus when he set forth (o. xviii. 265):- wherefore i know not if the gods will suffer me to return, or whether i shall be cut off there in troy; so do thou have a care for all these things. be mindful of my father and my mother in the halls, even as thou art or yet more than now, while i am far away. but when thou see'st thy son a bearded man, marry whom thou wilt and leave thine own house. he knew also the custom of having stewards (o. ii. 226):- he it was to whom odysseus, as he departed in the fleet, had given the charge over all his house that it should obey the old man, and that he should keep all things safe. grief at the death in one's household he thinks should not be unmeasured; for this is unworthy, nor does he allow it altogether to be repressed; for apathy is impossible for mankind, whence he says the following (i. xxiv. 48):- he mourns and weeps, but time his grief allays, for fate to man a patient mind hath given. other places he says (i. xix. 228):- behooves us bury out of sight our dead steeling our hearts and weeping but a day. he also knew the customs used now at funerals, in other passages and in the following (i. xvi. 456):- there shall his brethren and his friends perform his fun'ral rites, and mound and column raise the fitting tribute to the mighty dead and as andromache says (before) the naked and prostrate body of hector (i. xxii. 509):- but now on thee, beside the beaked ships far from thy parents, when the rav'ning dogs have had their fill, the wriggling worms shall feed in thee all naked; while within thy house lies store of raiment, rich and rare, the work of women's hands: these i will burn with fire not for thy need--thou ne'er shalt wear them more but for thine honor in the sight of troy. so, too, penelope prepares the shroud (o. ii. 99):- even this shroud for the hero laertes. but these are examples of moderation. but exceeding these are the living creatures and men achilles burns on the pyre of patroclus. he tells us of them, but does not do so in words of praise. therefore he exclaims (i. xxi. 19):- on savage deeds intent. and he first of all mentions monuments to the slain (i. vii. 336):- and on the plains erect around the pyre one common pyre for all. and he gave the first example of funeral games. these are common to times of peace and war. experience in warlike affairs, which some authorities call tactics, his poetry being varied by infantry, siege, and naval engagements, and also by individual contests, covers many types of strategy. some of these are worth mentioning. in drawing up armies it is necessary always to put the cavalry in front, and after it the infantry. this he indicates in the following verses (i. ii. 297):- in the front rank, with chariot and with horse, he plac'd the car-borne warriors; in the rear, num'rous and brave, a cloud of infantry! and as to placing leaders among the soldiers as they are arranged in files (i. ix. 86):- seven were the leaders; and with each went forth, a hundred gallant youths, with lances armed. some of the leaders fight in the front rank; some in the rear exhort the rest to fight (i. iv. 252):- and come where round their chief idomeneus, the warlike bards of crete were coming for the fight; idomeneus of courage stubborn as the forest boar the foremost ranks array'd; meriones the rearmost squadrons had in charge. it is necessary for those who are valiant to camp in the extreme limits, making as it were a wall for the rest; but for the king is pitched his tent in the safest place, that is, in the midst. he shows this by making the most valorous men, achilles and ajax, encamp in the most exposed spaces of the fleet, but agamemnon and the rest in the middle. the custom of surrounding the camp with earth-works, and digging around it a deep and wide ditch and planting it in a circle with stakes so that no one can jump over it by reason of its breadth, nor go down into it because of its depth, is found in the warlike operations of homer (i. xii. 52):- in vain we seek to drive our horses o'er the ditch: it is hard to cross, 'tis crowned with pointed stakes, and then behind is built the grecian wall; these to descend, and from our cars in narrow space to fight, were certain ruin. and in battle those who follow the example of homer's heroes die bravely (i. xxii. 304):- yet not without a struggle let me die, nor all inglorious; but let some great act, which future days may hear of, mark my fall. and another time (o. xv. 494):- and if there be among you who this day shall meet his doom by sword or arrow slain, e'en let him die! a glorious death is his who for his country falls. to those who distinguish themselves he distributes gifts (i. ix. 334):- to other chiefs and kings he meted out their several portions. and he threatens deserters (i. xv. 348):- whom i elsewhere, and from the ships aloof shall find, my hand shall down him on the spot. why is it necessary to speak of the heroes in battle? how differently and variously he makes them give and receive wounds. one he thinks worthy of mention, because he thinks those wounded in front are the more honorable because they prove steadfastness and a desire to abide the shock. those who are struck in the back or neck were less honorable, since these blows they received in flight. both of these are mentioned in homer (i. xii. 288):- not in the neck behind, nor in thy back should fall the blow, but in thy breast in front, thy courage none might call in doubt shouldst thou from spear or sword receive a wound. and again (i. xxii. 213):- not in my back will i receive thy spear, but through my heart. in putting enemies to flight he gives useful advice, not to be busied with the spoil, nor give time for flight, but to press on and pursue (i. vi. 68):- loiter not now behind, to throw yourselves upon the prey, and bear it to the ships; let all your aim be now to kill, then ye may at leisure spoil your slaughtered foe. there are in his poetry successful deeds achieved by every age, by which every one, no matter who he may be, can be encouraged: the man in the flower of his strength by achilles, ajax, and diomed; by younger ones antilochus and meriones; the mature by idomeneus and odysseus; the old men by nestor; and every king by all of these named and by agamemnon. such are in homer the examples of the discourse and action of civilized life. let us see now whether homer had any familiarity with medicine. that he held the art in high regard is clear from the following (i. xi. 514):- worth many a life is his, the skilful leech. medical science appears to be the science of disease and health. that it is a science any one can learn from this (o. iv. 23):- there each one is a leech skilled beyond all men. that it deals with disease and health (o. iv. 230):- many that are healing in the cup, and many baneful,-he indicates with these things. medicine has, too, a theoretical side which reaches the knowledge of particulars by universal reasoning and by inductive method. the parts of this are the study of symptoms and the knowledge of the courses of disease. the active part treating of action and effect; the parts of it diatetic, surgical, medicinal. how did homer appraise each of these? that he knew the theoretical side is evident from this (o. iv. 227):- medicines of such virtue and so helpful had the daughters of zeus. he calls them "of such virtue" because they were prepared by theoretic art. but the study of symptoms he goes over in the case of achilles. for he was a disciple of charon. he first observed, then, the causes of the pestilence which was attacking the greeks. for he knew that the causes of common diseases were from apollo, who seems to be the same as the sun. for he notices the seasons of the year. if these are intemperate, they become the causes of disease. for, in general, the safety and destruction of men are to be ascribed to apollo, of women to artemis, i.e. to the sun and moon, making them the casters of arrows by reason of the rays they throw out. so dividing the male and female he makes the male of the warmer temperament. on this account, at any rate, he says telemachus is of this type, "by the guidance of apollo"; but the daughters of tyndarus grew up, he says, under the protection of artemis. moreover, to these gods he attributes death in many places, and among others in the following (i. xxiv. 605):- the youths, apollo with his silver bow; the maids, the archer queen diana slew. where he relates the rising of the dog star, the same is a sign and cause of fever and disease (i. xxii. 30):- the highest he but sign to mortal man of evil augury and fiery heat. he gives the causes of disease where he speaks about the gods (i. v. 341):- they eat no bread, they drink no ruddy wine, thence are they bloodless and exempt from death. for food, whether dry or humid, is generative of blood. and this nourishes the body; if it is excessive or corrupt, it becomes the cause of disease. the practical part of medicine he carefully distinguishes. in this is the dietetic. first, he knew the periods and cures of diseases, as when he says (o. xi. 171):- what doom overcame thee of death that lays men at their length? was it a slow disease, or did artemis the archer slay them with the visitation of her gentle shafts? it is evident that he thinks a light diet is healthful. for he pictures his heroes making use of cooked food and so removes extravagant attention about things to eat. and since the stomach needs constant repletion, when cooked food, which has the closest relation to the body, is digested in the heart and veins, and the surfeit is cast forth, he says words like the following (o. vii. 215):- but as for me suffer me to sup afflicted as i am; for naught is there more shameless than a ravening belly, which biddeth a man perforce be mindful of him. and again (o. vii. 219):- yet ever more he biddeth me eat and drink, and maketh utterly to forget all my sufferings and commandeth me to take my fill. he knew, too, the difference in the use of wine: that immoderate drinking is harmful but moderate profitable; as follows (o. xxi. 294):- honey sweet wine, that is the bane of others too, even of all who take great draughts and drink out of measure. the other so (i. vi. 261):- but great the strength, which gen'rous wine imparts to men who toil and that gives additional force. and (i. xix. 167):- but he who first with food and wine refreshed all day maintains the combat with the foe. his spirit retains unbroken, and his limbs unwearied till both armies quit the field. and he thinks the agreeable taste contributes to good fellowship (o. vii. 182):- so spake he, and pontonous mixed the gladdening wine. the strong and heady kind odysseus gives to the cyclops, the sharp kind for a medicine, for such is the promneon brand, which he gives to wounded machaon. that he advises the use of gymnastics is evident in many places, for he makes his characters always at work, some in appropriate occupations, some for the sake of exercise. although the phaeacians are externally given to softness, and the suitors are dissolute, he introduces them doing gymnastic feats. and moderate exercise he thinks is the cause of health. for a tired body sleep is a remedy. for he says "sleep came upon odysseus" after he had been tired out by the sea (o. v. 493):- that so it might soon release him from his weary travail, overshadowing his eyelids. nature requires a tired body to take rest. and where there is too little heat, as it is not able to penetrate everywhere, it remains at the lowest level. why does the body rest? because the tension of the soul is remitted and the members are dissolved and this he clearly says (o. iv. 794):- and she sank back in sleep, and all her joints were loosened. as in other things, immoderation is not advantageous; so he declares the same with regard to sleep, at one time saying (o, xiv. 394):-weariness and much sleep. and another (o. xx. 52):- to wake and watch all night, this, too, is vexation of spirit. he knew, too, that clearness of air contributes to health, where he says (o. iv. 563):- but the deathless gods will convey thee to the elysian plain and the world's end, where is rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. no snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain; but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill west to blow cool on men. he knew remedies for sufferings; for cold revives those who are fainting, as in the case of sarpedon (i. v. 697):- he swooned, and giddy mists o'erspread his eyes, but soon revived as on his forehead blew while yet he gasped for breath the cooling breeze. heat is a remedy for cold, as in the case of storm-tossed odysseus, who bends down in the thicket, where there is a protection against winds and rains, and he covers himself with the wood about him. and other places he mentions baths and anointing, as in the case of diomed and odysseus returning from their night expedition. the special usefulness of baths he shows especially in the following (o. x. 362):- she bathed me with water from out a great caldron, pouring it over head and shoulders, where she had mixed it to a pleasant warmth till from my limbs she took away consuming weariness. it is plain that the nerves have their origin in the head and shoulders. so probably from this he makes the healing of fatigue to be taken. this takes place by the wetting and warming; for labors are parching. we have now to consider how he treated the function of surgery. machaon heals menelaus by first removing the javelin; then he examines the wound and presses out the blood, and scatters over it dry medicaments. and it is evident that this is done by him in a technical fashion. eurypalus, who is wounded in the thigh, first treats it with a sharp knife, then he washes it with clear water; afterward to diminish the pain, he employs an herb. for there are many in existence that heal wounds. he knew this, too, that bitter things are suitable; for to dry up wounds requires exsiccation. after patroclus has applied the healing art, he did not go away immediately, but (i. xv. 393):- remaining, with his converse soothed the chief. for a sufferer needs sympathy. machaon wounded not with a great or fatal wound on the shoulder, he makes using intentionally a somewhat careless diet. perhaps here he shows his art. for he who takes care of himself at ordinary times is able to heal himself. this is noted, too, in homer, that he knows the distinction of drugs. some are to be used as plasters, others as powders, as when he says (i. iv. 218):- and applied with skilful hand the herbs of healing power. but some are to be drunk, as where helen mixes a medicine in a bowl (o. iv. 221):- a drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. he knows, too, that some poisonous drugs are to be applied as ointments (o. i. 261):- to seek a deadly drug, that he might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod arrows. others are to be drunk, as in these words (o. ii. 330):- to fetch a poisonous drug that he may cast it into the bowl and make an end of all of us. so much for medicines in the homeric poems. divination is useful to man like medicine. a part of this the stoics call artificial, as the inspection of entrails and birds' oracles, lots, and signs. all of these they call in general artificial. but what is not artificial, and is not acquired by learning, are trances and ecstasy, homer knew, too, of these phenomena. but he also knew of seers, priests, interpreters of dreams, and augurs. a certain wise man in ithaca he tells of (o. ii 159):- he excelled his peers in knowledge of birds and in uttering words of fate. and odysseus, praying, says (o. xx. 100):- let some one i pray of the folk that are waking show me a word of good omen within and without; let soon other sign be revealed to me from zeus. snoring with him is a good sign. a divinely inspired seer is with the suitors, telling the future by divine inspiration. once, too, helenus says (i. vii. 53):- he was the recipient of a divine voice. by revelation from th' eternal gods. he gives cause of believing that socrates had actually communications from the voice of the daemon. what natural or scientific art is left untouched? tragedy took its start from homer, and afterward was raised to supremacy in words and things. he shows that there is every form of tragedy; great and extraordinary deeds, appearances of the gods, speech full of wisdom, revealing all sorts of natures. in a word, his poems are all dramas, serious and sublime in expression, also in feeling and in subject. but they contain no exhibition of unholy deeds, lawless marriages, or the murder of parents and children, or the other marvels of more recent tragedy. but when he mentions a thing of this kind, he seems to conceal rather than to condemn the crime. as he does in the case of of clytemnestra. for he says (o. iii. 266):- that she was endowed with an excellent mind as she had with her a teacher appointed by agamemnon, to give her the best advice. aegisthus got this tutor out of the way and persuaded her to sin. he allows that orestes justly avenged his father's death by killing aegisthus; but he passes over in silence the murder of his mother. many of the like examples are to be seen in the poet, as a writer of majestic, but not inhuman, tragedy. none the less, however, comedy took from him its origin; for he contains, although he relates the gravest and most serious things, episodes which move to laughter, as in the "iliad" hephaestus is introduced limping and pouring out wine for the gods (i. i. 599):- rose laughter irrepressible, at sight of vulcan hobbling round the spacious hall. thersites is most contemptible in body and most evil in disposition, from his raising a disturbance, and his slanderous speech and boastfulness. odysseus attacks him on this account and gives occasion to all to laugh (i. ii. 270):- the greeks, despite their anger, laugh'd aloud. in the "odyssey" among the pleasure-loving phaeacians their bard sings the adultery of ares and aphrodite. he tells how they fell into the snares of hepheastus, and were taken in the act, and caused all the gods to laugh, and how they joked frequently with one another. and among the dissolute suitors irus the beggar is brought in, contesting for a prize with the most noble odysseus, and how he appeared ridiculous in the action. altogether it is the character of human nature, not only to be intense, but to take "a moral holiday" so that the men may be equal to the troubles of life. such relaxation for the mind is to be found in our poet. those who in later days introduced comedy to produce laughter made use of bare and naked language, but they cannot claim to have invented anything better. of erotic feelings and expression, homer makes but a moderate use; as zeus says (i. iii. 442):- for never did thy beauty so inflame my sense. and what follows, and about helen (i. iii. 156):- and 'tis no marvel, one to other said, the valiant trojans and the well-greaved greeks for beauty such as this should long endure the toils of war. and other things of the same kind. other poets have represented men taken by this passion uncontrollably and immoderately. this is sufficient for this subject. epigrams are a pleasing variety of speech; they are found on statues and on monuments indicating succinctly to whom they are dedicated. and this, too, is a mark of homer where he says (i. vii. 89):- lo! there a warrior's tomb of days gone by, a mighty chief whom glorious hector slew. and again (i. vi. 460):- lo! this was hector's wife, who, when they fought on plains of troy, was ilion's bravest chief. but if any one should say that homer was a master of painting, he would make no mistake. for some of the wise men said that poetry was speaking painting, and painting silent poetry. who before or who more than homer, by the imagination of his thoughts or by the harmony of his verse, showed and exalted gods, men, places, and different kinds of deeds? for he showed by abundance of language all sorts of creatures and the most notable things--lions, swine, leopards. describing their forms and characters and comparing them to human deeds, he showed the properties of each. he dared to liken the forms of gods to those of men. hephaestus prepared achilles' shield; he sculptured in gold, land, sky, sea, the greatness of the sun and the beauty of the moon and the host of the stars crowning all. he placed on it cities in different states and fortunes, and animals moving and speaking. who has more skill than the artificer of such an art? let us see in another example out of many how poems resemble more those things that are seen than those that are heard. as for example, in the passage where he tells of the wound of odysseus, he introduces what eurychleias did (o. xix. 468):- now the old woman took the scarred limb and passed her hand down it, and knew it by the touch and let the foot drop suddenly, so that the knees fell into the bath, and the vessel broke, being turned over on the other side, and that water was spilled on the ground. then grief and joy came on her in one moment, and her eyes filled with tears, and the voice of her utterance was stayed, and touching the chin of odysseus, she spake to him saying, "yea, verily, thou art odysseus, my dear child, and i knew thee not before till i had handled all the body of my lord." therewithal she looked toward penelope, as minded to make a sign and the rest. for here more things are shown than can be in a picture and those can be weighed by the eyes. they are not to be taken in by the eyes, but by the intelligence alone: such as the letting go of the foot through emotion, the sound of the tears, the spilt water and the grief, and at the same time the joy of the old women, her words to odysseus, and what she is about to say as she looks toward penelope. many other things are graphically revealed in the poet which come out when he is read. it is time to close a work which we have woven, like a crown from a beflowered and variegated field, and which we offer to muses. and we, we shall not lay it to the heart if any one censures us, because the homeric poems contain the basis of evil things, if we ascribe to him various political, ethical, and scientific discussions. since good things are by themselves simple, straightforward, and unprepared; but what is mixed with evil has many different modes and all kinds of combinations, from which the substance of the matter is derived. if evil is added to the others, the knowledge and choice of the good is made easier. and on the whole a subject of this sort gives occasion to the poet for originating discourse of all kinds, some belonging to himself, some proper to the characters he introduces. from this circumstance be gives much profit to his readers. why should we not ascribe to homer every excellence? those things that he did not work up, they who came after him have noticed. and some make use of his verses for divination, like the oracles of god. others setting forward other projects fit to them for our use what he has said by changing or transposing it. end of twelve-------------the banquet of the seven wise men. the seven,--solon, dias, thales, anacharsis, cleobulus, pittacus, chilo. niloxenus, eumetis, alexidemus periander, ardalus, aesop, cleodemus, mnesiphilus, chersias, gorgias, diocles. diocles to nicarchus no wonder, my friend nicarchus, to find old truths so disguised, and the words and actions of men so grossly and misrepresented and lamely delivered, seeing people are so disposed to give ear and credit to fictions of yesterday's standing. for there were not merely seven present at that feast, as you were informed; there were more than double the number. i was there myself in person familiarly acquainted with periander (my art had gained me his acquaintance); and thales boarded at my house, at the request and upon the recommendation of periander. whoever then gave you that account of our feast did it very inadequately; it is plain he did it upon hearsay and that he was not there among us. now, that we are together and at leisure, and possibly we may not live to find an opportunity so convenient another time, i will (as you wish it) give you a faithful account of the whole proceedings at that meeting. periander had prepared a dinner for us, not in the town, but in a dining-hall which stands close to the temple of venus, to whom there was a sacrifice that day. for having neglected the duty ever since his mother died for love, he was resolved now to atone for the omission, being warned so to do by the dreams of melissa. in order thereunto, there was provided a rich chariot for every one of the guests. it was summer-time, and every part of the way quite to the seaside was hardly passable, by reason of throngs of people and whole clouds of dust. as soon as thales espied the chariot waiting at the door, he smilingly discharged it, and we walked through the fields to avoid the press and noise. there was in our company a third person, niloxenus a naucratian, an eminent man, who was very intimately acquainted with solon and thales in egypt; he had a message to deliver to bias, and a letter sealed, the contents whereof he knew not; only he guessed it contained a second question to be resolved by bias, and in case bias undertook not to answer it, he had in commission to impart it to the wisest men in greece. what a fortune is this (quoth niloxenus) to find you all together! this paper (showing it us) i am bringing to the banquet. thales replied, after his wonted smiling way, if it contains any hard question, away with it to priene. bias will resolve it with the same readiness he did your former problem. what problem was that? quoth he. why, saith thales, a certain person sent him a beast for sacrifice with this command, that he should return him that part of his flesh which was best and worst; our philosopher very gravely and wisely pulled out the tongue of the beast, and sent it to the donor;--which single act procured him the name and reputation of a very wise man. it was not this act alone that advanced him in the estimation of the world, quoth niloxenus; but he joyfully embraces what you so carefully shun, the acquaintance and friendship of kings and great men; and whereas he honors you for divers great accomplishments, he particularly admires you for this invention, that with little labor and no help of any mathematical instrument you took so truly the height of one of the pyramids; for fixing your staff erect at the point of the shadow which the pyramid cast, two triangles being thus made by the tangent rays of the sun, you demonstrated that what proportion one shadow had to the other, such the pyramid bore to the stick. but, as i said, you are accused of being a hater of kings, and certain false friends of yours have presented amasis with a paper of yours stuffed with sentences reproachful to majesty; as for instance, being at a certain time asked by molpagoras the ionian, what the most absurd thing was you had observed in your notice, you replied, an old king. another time, in a dispute that happened in your company about the nature of beasts, you affirmed that of wild beasts, a king, of tame, a flatterer, was the worst. such apothegms must needs be unacceptable to kings, who pretend there is vast difference between them and tyrants. this was pittacus's reply to myrsilus, and it was spoken in jest, quoth thales; nor was it an old king i said i should marvel at, but an old pilot. in this mistake however, i am much of the youth's mind who, throwing a stone at a dog, hit his stepmother, adding, not so bad. i therefore esteemed solon a very wise and good man, when i understood he refused empire; and if pittacus had not taken upon himself a monarchy, he had never exclaimed, o ye gods! how hard a matter it is to be good! and periander, however he seems to be sick of his father's disease, is yet to be commended that he gives ear to wholesome discourses and converses only with wise and good men, rejecting the advice of thrasybulus my countryman who would have persuaded him to chop off the heads of the leading men. for a prince that chooses rather to govern slaves than freemen is like a foolish farmer, who throws his wheat and barley in the streets, to fill his barns with swarms of locusts and whole cages of birds. for government has one good thing to make amends for its many evils, namely, honor and glory, provided one rules good men as being better than they and great men because greater than they. but he that having ascended the throne minds only his own interest and ease, is fitter to tend sheep or to drive horses or to feed cattle than to govern men. but this stranger (continues he) has engaged us in a deal of impertinent chat, for we have omitted to speak or offer any discourse suitable to the occasion and end of our meeting; for doubtless it becomes the guest as well as the host, to make preparation beforehand. it is reported that the sybarites used to invite their neighbors' wives a whole twelve-month before to their entertainments, that they might have convenient time to trim and adorn themselves; for my part, i am of opinion, that he who would feast as he should ought to allow himself more time for preparation than they, it being a more difficult matter to compose the mind into an agreeable temper than to fit one's clothes for the outward ornament of the body. for a prudent man comes not hither only to fill his belly, as if he were to fill a bottle, but to be sometimes grave and serious, sometimes pleasant, sometimes to listen to others, and sometimes to speak himself what may benefit or divert the company, if the meeting is intended for any good use or purpose. for if the victuals be not good, men may let them alone, or if the wine be bad, men may use water; but for a weak-brained, impertinent, unmannerly, shallow fellow-commoner there is no cure; he mars all the mirth and music, and spoils the best entertainment in the world. and it will be no easy business to lay aside a sullen temper; since we find divers men, angered in their debauches, have yet remembered the provocation to their dying day, the spite remaining like a surfeit arising from wrong done or an insult received in drinking. wherefore chilo did very well and wisely; for when he invited yesterday, he would not promise to come till he had a particular given him of all their names who were to meet him. for, quoth he, if my business calls me to sea or i am pressed to serve my prince in his wars, there is a necessity upon me to rest contented with whatever company i fall into, though never so unsuitable to my quality or disagreeable to my nature and humor; but voluntarily and needlessly to associate myself with any riffraff rabble would ill become any man pretending to but common discretion. the egyptian skeleton which they brought into their feasts and exposed to the view of their guests, with this advice, that they should not in their merriment forget they would shortly be themselves such as that was,--though it was a sight not so acceptable (as may be supposed),--had yet this conveniency and use, to incite the spectators not to luxury and drunkenness but to mutual love and friendship, persuading them not to protract a life in itself short and uncertain by a tedious course of wickedness. in discourses of this kind we spent our time by the way, and were now come to the house. here thales would not be washed, for he had but a while before anointed himself; wherefore he took a round to view the horse-race and the wrestling-place, and the grove upon the water-side, which was neatly trimmed and beautified by periander; this he did, not so much to satisfy his own curiosity (for he seldom or never admired anything he saw), but that he might not disoblige periander or seem to overlook or despise the glory and magnificence of our host. of the rest every one, after he had anointed and washed himself, the servants introduced into a particular room, purposely fitted and prepared for the men; they were guided thither through a porch, in which anacharsis sat, and there was a certain young lady with him combing his hair. this lady stepping forward to welcome thales, he kissed her most courteously, and smiling said: madam, make our host fair and pleasant, so that, being (as he is) the mildest man in the world, he may not be fearful and terrible for us to look on. when i was curious to inquire who this lady was, he said, do you not yet know the wise and famous eumetis? for so her father calls her, though others call her after her father's name cleobulina. doubtless, saith niloxenus, they call her by this name to commend her judgment and wit, and her reach into the more abstruse and recondite part of learning; for i have myself in egypt seen and read some problems first started and discussed by her. not so, saith thales, for she plays with these as with cockal-bones, and deals boldly with all she meets; she is a person of an admirable understanding, of a shrewd capacious mind, of a very obliging conversation, and one that prevails upon her father to govern his subjects with the greatest mildness. how democratic she is appears, saith niloxenus, plainly to any that observes her simple innocent garb. but pray, continues he, wherefore is it that she shows such affection to anacharsis? because, replied thales, he is a temperate and learned man, who fully and freely makes known to her those mysterious ways of dieting and physicing the sick which are now in use among the scythians; and i doubt not she now coaxes and courts the old gentleman at the rate you see, taking this opportunity to discourse with him and learn something of him. as we were come near the dining-room, alexidemus the milesian, a bastard son of thrasybulus the tyrant, met us. he seemed to be disturbed, and in an angry tone muttered to himself some words which we could not distinctly hear; but espying thales, and recovering himself out of his disorder, he complained how periander had put an insufferable affront upon him. he would not permit me, saith he, to go to sea, though i earnestly importuned him, but he would press me to dine with him. and when i came as invited, he assigned me a seat unbecoming my person and character, aeolians and islanders and others of inferior rank being placed above me; whence it is easy to infer how meanly he thinks of my father, and it is undeniable how this affront put upon me rebounds disgracefully in my parent's face. say you so? quoth thales, are you afraid lest the place lessen or diminish your honor and worth, as the egyptians commonly hold the stars are magnified or lessened according to their higher or lower place and position? and are you more foolish than that spartan who, when the prefect of the music had appointed him to sit in the lowest seat in the choir, replied, this is prudently done, for this is the ready way to bring this seat into repute and esteem? it is a frivolous consideration, where or below whom we sit; and it is a wiser part to adapt ourselves to the judgment and humor of our right and left hand man and the rest of the company, that we may approve ourselves worthy of their friendship, when they find we take no pet at our host, but are rather pleased to be placed near such good company. and whosoever is disturbed upon the account of his place seems to be more angry with his neighbor than with his host, but certainly is very troublesome and nauseous to both. these are fine words, and no more, quoth alexidemus, for i observe you, the wisest of men, as ambitious as other men; and having said thus, he passed by us doggedly and trooped off. thales, seeing us admiring the insolence of the man, declared he was a fellow naturally of a blockish, stupid disposition; for when he was a boy, he took a parcel of rich perfume that was presented to thrasybulus and poured it into a large bowl and mixing it with a quantity of wine, drank it off and was ever hated for it. as thales was talking after this fashion, in comes a servant and tells us it was periander's pleasure we would come in and inform him what we thought of a certain creature brought into his presence that instant, whether it were so born by chance or were a monster and omen;--himself seeming mightily affected and concerned, for he judged his sacrifice polluted by it. at the same time he walked before us into a certain house adjoining to his garden-wall, where we found a young beardless shepherd, tolerably handsome, who having opened a leathern bag produced and showed us a child born (as he averred) of a mare. his upper parts as far as his neck and his hands, was of human shape, and the rest of his body resembled a perfect horse; his cry was like that of a child newly born. as soon as niloxenus saw it, he cried out. the gods deliver us; and away he fled as one sadly affrighted. but thales eyed the shepherd a considerable while, and then smiling (for it was his way to jeer me perpetually about my art) says he, i doubt not, diocles, but you have been all this time seeking for some expiatory sacrifice, and meaning to call to your aid those gods whose province and work it is to avert evils from men, as if some greet and grievous thing had happened. why not? quoth i, for undoubtedly this prodigy portends sedition and war, and i fear the dire portents thereof may extend to myself, my wife, and my children, and prove all our ruin; since, before i have atoned for my former fault, the goddess gives us this second evidence and proof of her displeasure. thales replied never a word, but laughing went out of the house. periander, meeting him at the door, inquired what we thought of that creature; he dismissed me, and taking periander by the hand, said, whatsoever diocles shall persuade you to do, do it at your best leisure; but i advise you either not to have such youthful men to keep your mares, or to give them leave to marry. when periander heard him out, he seemed infinitely pleased, for he laughed outright, and hugging thales in his arms he kissed him; then saith he, o diocles, i am apt to think the worst is over, and what this prodigy portended is now at an end; for do you not apprehend what a loss we have sustained in the want of alexidemus's good company at supper? when we entered into the house, thales raising his voice inquired where it was his worship refused to be placed; which being shown him, he sat himself in that very place, and prayed us to sit down by him, and said, i would gladly give any money to have an opportunity to sit and eat with ardalus. this ardalus was a troezenian by birth, by profession a minstrel, and a priest of the ardalian muses, whose temple old ardalus had founded and dedicated. here aesop, who was sent from croesus to visit periander, and withal to consult the oracle at delphi, sitting by and beneath solon upon a low stool, told the company this fable: a lydian mule, viewing his own picture in a river, and admiring the bigness and beauty of his body, raises his crest; he waxes proud, resolving to imitate the horse in his gait and running; but presently, recollecting his extraction, how that his father was but an ass at best, he stops his career and cheeks his own haughtiness and bravery. chilo replied, after his short concise way, you are slow and yet try to run, in imitation of your mule. amidst these discourses in comes melissa and sits her down by periander; eumetis followed and came in as we were at supper; then thales calls to me (i sat me down above bias), why do you not make bias acquainted with the problems sent him from the king by niloxenus this second time, that he may soberly and warily weigh them? bias answered, i have been already scared with that news. i have known that bacchus is otherwise a powerful deity, and for his wisdom is termed [greek omitted] that is, the interpreter; therefore i shall undertake it when my belly is full of wine. thus they jested and reparteed and played one upon another all the while they sat at table. observing the unwonted frugality of periander at this time, i considered with myself that the entertainment of wise and good men is a piece of good husbandry, and that so far from enhancing a man's expenses in truth it serves to save charge, the charge (to wit) of costly foreign unguents and junkets, and the waste of the richest wines, which periander's state and greatness required him every day in his ordinary treats to expend. such costly provisions were useless here, and periander's wisdom appeared in his frugality. moreover, his lady had laid aside her richer habit, and appeared in an ordinary, but a very becoming dress. supper now ended, and melissa having distributed the garlands, we offered sacrifice; and when the minstrel had played us a tune or two, she withdrew. then ardalus inquired of anacharsis, if there were women fiddlers at scythia. he suddenly and smartly replied, there are no vines there. ardalus asked a second question, whether the scythians had any gods among them. yes, quoth anacharsis, and they understand what men say to them; nor are the scythians of the grecian opinion (however these last may be the better orators), that the gods are better pleased with the sounds of flutes and pipes than with the voice of men. my friend, saith aesop, what would you say if you saw our present pipe-makers throw away the bones of fawns and hind-calves, to use those of asses, affirming they yield the sweeter and more melodious sound? whereupon cleobulina made one of her riddles about the phrygian flute,... in regard to the sound, and wondered that an ass, a gross animal and so alien from music should yet supply bones so fit for harmony. therefore it is doubtless, quoth niloxenus, that the people of busiris blame us naucratians for using pipes made of asses' bones it being an insufferable crime in an of them to listen to the flute or cornet, the sound thereof being (as they esteem it) so like the braying of an ass; and you know an ass is hateful to the egyptians on account of typhon. there happening here a short silence, periander, observing niloxenus willing but not daring to speak, said: i cannot but commend the civility of those magistrates who give audience first to strangers and afterwards to their own citizens; wherefore i judge it convenient that we inhabitants and neighbors should proceed no farther at present in our discourse, and that now attention be given to those royal propositions sent us from egypt, which the worthy niloxenus is commissioned to deliver to bias, who wishes that he and we may scan and examine them together. and bias said: for where or in what company would a man more joyfully adventure to give his opinion than here in this? and since it is his majesty's pleasure that i should give my judgment first, in obedience to his commands i will do so, and afterwards they shall come to every one of you in order. then niloxenus delivered the paper to bias, who broke up the seal and commanded it to be read in all their hearing. the contents were these: amasis the king of egypt, to bias, the wisest of the grecians, greeting. there is a contest between my brother of ethiopia and myself about wisdom; and being baffled in divers other particulars, he now demands of me a thing absurd and impracticable; for he requires me to drink up the ocean dry. if i be able to read this his riddle, divers cities and towns now in his possession are to be annexed to my kingdom; but if i cannot resolve this hard sentence, and give him the right meaning thereof, he requires of me my right to all the towns bordering upon elephantina. consider with speed the premises, and let me receive your thoughts by niloxenus. pray lose no time. if in anything i can be serviceable to your city or friends, you may command me. farewell. bias, having perused and for a little time meditated upon the letter, and whispering cleobulus in the ear (he sat by him), exclaimed: what a narration is here, o niloxenus! will amasis, who governs so many men and is seized of so many flourishing territories, drink up the ocean for the gain of a few paltry, beggarly villages? niloxenus replied with a smile: consider, good sir, what is to be done, if he will obey. why then, said bias, let amasis require the ethopian king to stop the stream which from all parts flow and empty themselves in the ocean, until he have drunk out the whole remainder; for i conceive he means the present waters, not those which shall flow into it hereafter. niloxenus was so overjoyed at this answer, that he could not contain himself. he hugged and kissed the author, and the whole company liked his opinion admirably well; and chilo laughing desired niloxenus to get aboard immediately before the sea was consumed, and tell his master he should mind more how to render his government sweet and potable to his people, than how to swallow such a quantity of salt water. for bias, he told him, understands these things very well, and knows how to oblige your lord with very useful instructions, which if he vouchsafe to attend, he shall no more need a golden basin to wash his feet, to gain respect from his subjects; all will love and honor him for his virtue, though he were ten thousand times more hateful to them than he is. it were well and worthily done, quoth periander, if all of us did pay him our first-fruits in this kind by the poll (as homer said). such a course would bring him an accession of profit greater than the whole proceeds of the voyage, besides being of great use to ourselves. to this point it is fit that solon should first speak, quoth chilo, not only because he is the eldest in the company and therefore sits uppermost at table, but because he governs and gives laws to the amplest and most complete and flourishing republic in the world, that of athens. here niloxenus whispered me in the ear: o diocles, saith he, how many reports fly about and are believed, and how some men delight in lies which they either feign of their own heads or most greedily swallow from the mouths of others. in egypt i heard it reported how chilo had renounced all friendship and correspondence with solon, because he maintained the mutability of laws. a ridiculous fiction, quoth i, for then he and we must have renounced lycurgus, who changed the laws and indeed the whole government of sparta. solon, pausing awhile, gave his opinion in these words. i conceive that monarch, whether king or tyrant, were infinitely to be commanded, who would exchange his monarchy for a commonwealth. bias subjoined, and who would be first and foremost in conforming to the laws of his country. thales added, i reckon that prince happy, who, being old, dies in his bed a natural death. fourthly, anacharsis, if he alone be a wise man. fifthly, cleobulus said, if he trust none of his courtiers. sixthly, pittacus spake thus, if he could so treat his subjects that they feared not him but for him. lastly, chilo concluded thus, a magistrate ought to meditate no mortal thing but everything immortal. when all had given in their judgments upon this point, we requested periander to let us know his thoughts. disorder and discontent appearing in his countenance, he said, these opinions are enough to scare any wise man from affecting, empire. these things, saith aesop after his reproving way, ought rather to have been discussed privately among ourselves, lest we be accounted antimonarchical while we desire to be esteemed friends and loyal counsellors. solon, gently touching him on the head and smiling, answered: do you not perceive that any one would make a king more moderate and a tyrant more favorable, who should persuade him that it is better not to reign than to reign? who would believe you before the oracle delivered unto you, quoth aesop which pronounced that city happy that heard but one crier. yes, quoth solon, and athens, now a commonwealth, hath but one crier and one magistrate, the law, though the government be democratical; but you, my friend, have been so accustomed to the croaking of ravens and the prating of jays, that you do not hear clearly your own voice. for you maintain it to be the happiness of a city to be under the command of one man, and yet account it the merit of a feast if liberty is allowed every man to speak his mind freely upon what subject he pleases. but you have not prohibited your servants' drunkenness at athens, aesop said, as you have forbidden them to love or to use dry ointments. solon laughed at this; but cleodorus the physician said: to use dry ointment is like talking when a man is soaked with wine; both are very pleasant. therefore, saith chilo, men ought the more carefully to avoid it. aesop proceeds, thales seemed to imply that he should soon grow old. periander said laughing: we suffer deservedly, for, before we have perfected any remarks upon the letter, we are fallen upon disputes foreign to the matter under consideration; and therefore i pray, niloxenus, read out the remainder of your lord's letter, and slip not this opportunity to receive what satisfaction all that are present shall be able to give you. the command of the king of ethiopia, says niloxenus, is no more and no less than (to use archilochus's phrase) a broken scytale; that is, the meaning is inscrutable and cannot be found out. but your master amasis was more mild and polite in his queries; for he commanded him only to resolve him what was most ancient, most beautiful, greatest, wisest, most common, and withal, what was most profitable, most pernicious, most strong, and most easy. did he resolve and answer every one of these questions? he did, quoth niloxenus, and do you judge of his answers and the soundness thereof: and it is my prince's purpose not to misrepresent his responses and condemn unjustly what he saith well, so, where he finds him under a mistake, not to suffer that to pass without correction. his answers to the foresaid questions i will read to you.--what is most ancient? time. what is greatest? the world. what is wisest? truth. what is most beautiful? the light. what is most common? death. what is most profitable? god. what is most pernicious? an evil genius. what is strongest? fortune. what is most easy? that which is pleasant. when niloxenus had read out these answers, there was a short silence among them; by and by thales desires niloxenus to inform him if amasis approved of these answers. niloxenus said, he liked some and disliked others. there is not one of them right and sound, quoth thales, but all are full of wretched folly and ignorance. as for instance, how can that be most ancient whereof part is past, part is now present, and part is yet to come; every man knows it is younger than ourselves and our actions. as to his answer that truth is the most wise thing, it is as incongruous as if he had affirmed the light to be an eye if he judged the light to be the most beautiful how could he omit the sun; as to his solutions concerning the gods and evil genuises, they are full of presumption and peril. what he saith of fortune is void of sense, for her inconstancy and fickleness proceed from want of strength and power. nor is death the most common thing; the living are still at liberty, it hath not arrested them. but lest we be blamed as having a faculty to find fault only, we will lay down our opinions of these things, and compare them with those of the ethiopian; i offer my self first, if niloxenus pleases, to deliver my opinion on every one singly and i will relate both questions and answers in that method and order in which they were sent to ethiopia and read to us. what is most ancient thales answered, god, for he had no beginning. what is greatest? place; the world contains all other things, this surrounds and contains the world. what is most beautiful? the world; for whatever is framed artificially and methodically is a part of it. what is most wise? time; for it has found out some things already, it will find out the rest in due time. what is most common hope; for they that want other things are masters of this. what is most profitable? virtue; for by a right managery of other things she makes them all beneficial and advantageous. what is most pernicious? vice; for it depraves the best things we enjoy. what is most strong? necessity; for this alone is insuperable. what is most easy? that which is most agreeable to nature; for pleasures themselves are sometimes tedious and nauseating. all the consult approved of thale's solutions. cleodemus said: my friend niloxenus, it becomes kings to propound and resolve such questions; but the insolence of that barbarian who would have amasis drink the sea would have been better fitted by such a smart reprimand as pittacus gave alyattes, who sent an imperious letter to the lesbians. he made him no other answer, but to bid him spend his time in eating his hot bread and onions. periander, here assumed the discourse, and said: it was the manner of the ancient grecians heretofore, o cleodemus, to propound doubts to one another; and it hath been told us, that the most famous and eminent poets used to meet at the grave of amphidamas in chalcis. this amphidamas was a leading commander, one that had perpetual wars with the eretrians, and at last lost his life in one of the battles fought for the possession of the lelantine plain. now, because the writings of those poets were set to verse and so made the argument more knotty and the decision more arduous, and the great names of the antagonists, homer and hesiod, whose excellence was so well known, made the umpires timorous and shy to determine; they therefore betook themselves to these sorts of questions, and homer, says lesches, propounded this riddle:- tell me, o muse, what never was and never yet shall be. hesiod answered readily and extempore in this wise:- when steeds with echoing hoof, to win the prize, shall run amain; and on the tomb of lofty jove their chariots break in twain. for this reply he was infinitely commended and got the tripod. pray tell me, quoth cleodemus, what difference there is between these riddles and those of eumetis, which she frames and invents to recreate herself with as much pleasure as other virgins make nets and girdles? they may be fit to offer and puzzle women withal; but for men to beat their brains to find out their mystery would be mighty ridiculous. eumetis looked like one that had a great mind to reply; but her modesty would not permit her, for her face was filled with blushes. but aesop in her vindication asked: is it not much more ridiculous that all present cannot resolve the riddle she propounded to us before supper? this was as follows:- a man i saw, who by his fire did set a piece of brass fast to a man, so that it seemed to him it welded was. can you tell me, said he, how to construe this, and what the sense of it may be? no, said cleodemus, it is no profit to know what it means. and yet, quoth aesop, no man understands this thing better and practises it more judiciously and successfully than yourself. if you deny it, i have my witnesses ready; for there are your cupping-glasses. cleodemus laughed outright; for of all the physicians in his time, none used cupping-glasses like him, he being a person that by his frequent and fortunate application thereof brought them first into request in the world. mnesiphilus the athenian, a friend and favorite of solon's, said: o periander, our discourse, as our wine, ought to be distributed not according to our power or priority, but freely and equally, as in a popular state; for what hath been already discoursed concerning kingdoms and empires signifies little to us who live in a democracy. wherefore i judge it convenient that every one of you, commencing with solon, should freely and impartially declare his sense of a popular state. the motion pleased all the company; then saith solon: my friend mnesiphilus, you heard, together with the rest of this good company, my opinion concerning republics; but since you are willing to hear it again, i hold that city or state happy and most likely to remain free, in which those that are not personally injured are yet as forward to try and punish wrongdoers as that person who is wronged. bias added, where all fear the law as they fear a tyrant. thirdly, thales said, where the citizens are neither too rich nor too poor. fourthly, anacharsis said, where, though in all other respects they are equal, yet virtuous men are advanced and vicious persons degraded. fifthly, cleobulus said, where the rulers fear reproof and shame more than the law. sixthly, pittacus said, where evil men are kept from ruling, and good men from not ruling. chilo, pausing a little while, determined that the best and most enduring state was where the subject minded the law most and the lawyers least. periander concluded with his opinion, that all of them would best approve that democracy which came next and was likest to an aristocracy. after they had ended this discourse, i begged they would condescend to direct me how to govern a house; for they were few who had cities and kingdoms to govern, compared with those who had houses and families to manage. aesop laughed and said: i hope you except anacharsis out of your number; for having no house he glories because he can be contented with a chariot only, as they say the sun is whirled about from one end of the heavens to the other in his chariot. therefore, saith anacharsis, he alone, or he principally, is most free among the gods, and ever at his own liberty and dispose. he governs all, and is governed and subject to none, but he rides and reigns; and you know not how magnificent and broad his chariot is; if you did, you would not thus floutingly depreciate our scythian chariots. for you seem in my apprehension to call these coverings made of wood and mud houses, as if you should call the shell and not the living creature a snail. therefore you laughed when solon told you how, when he viewed croesus's palace and found it richly and gloriously furnished, he yet could not yield he lived happily until he had tried the inward and invisible state of his mind; for a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favors and blessings of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind. and you seem to have forgot your own fable of the fox, who, contending with the leopard as to which possessed more colors and spots, and having referred the matter in controversy to the arbitration of an umpire, desired him to consider not so much the outside as the inside; for, saith he, i have more various and different fetches and tricks in my mind than he has marks or spots in his body. you regard only the handiwork of carpenters and masons and stone-cutters, and call this a house; not what one hath within, his children, his wife, his friends and attendants, with whom if a man lived in an emmet's bed or a bird's nest, enjoying in common the ordinary comforts of life, this man may be affirmed to live a happy and a fortunate life. this is the answer i purpose to return aesop, quoth anacharsis, and i tender it to diocles as my share in this discourse; only let the rest give in their opinions, if they please. solon thought that house most happy where the estate was got without injustice, kept without distrust, and spent without repentance. bias said, that house is happy where the master does freely and voluntarily what the law would else compel him to do. thales held that house most happy where the master had most leisure and respite from business. cleobulus said, that in which the master is more beloved than feared. pittacus said, most that is happy where superfluities are not required and necessaries are not wanting. chilo added, that house is most happy where one rules as a monarch in his kingdom. and he proceeded, when a certain lacedaemonian desired lycurgus to establish a democracy in the city. go you, friend, replied he, and try the experiment first in your own house. when they had all given in their opinions upon this point, eumetis and melissa withdrew. then periander called for a large bowl full of wine, and drank to chilo; and chilo too drank to bias. ardalus then standing up called to aesop, and said: will you not hand the cup to your friends at this end of the table, when you behold those persons there swilling up all that good liquor, and imparting none to us here as if the cup were that of bathycles. but this cup, quoth aesop, is no public cup, it hath stood so long by solon's trenchard. then pittacus called to mnesiphilus: why, saith he, does not solon drink, but act in contradiction to his own verses?- i love that ruby god, whose blessings flow in tides, to recreate my thirsty maw; venus i court, the muses i adore, who give us wine and pleasures evermore. anacharsis subjoined: he fears your severe law, my friend pittacus, wherein you decreed the drunkard a double punishment. you seem, said pittacus, a little to fear the penalty, who have adventured heretofore, and now again before my face, to break that law and to demand a crown for the reward of your debauch. why not, quoth anacharsis, when there is a reward promised to the hardest drinker? why should i not demand my reward, having drunk down all my fellows?--or inform me of any other end men drive at in drinking much wine, but to be drunk. pittacus laughed at this reply, and aesop told them this fable: the wolf seeing a parcel of shepherds in their booth feeding upon a lamb, approaching near them,--what a bustle and noise and uproar would there have been, saith he, if i had but done what you do! chilo said: aesop hath very justly revenged himself upon us, who awhile ago stopped his mouth; now he observes how we prevented mnesiphilus's discourse, when the question was put why solon did not drink up his wine. mnesiphilus then spake to this effect: i know this to be the opinion of solon, that in every art and faculty, divine and human, the work which is done is more desired than the instrument wherewith it is done, and the end than the means conducing to that end; as, for instance, a weaver thinks a cloak or coat more properly his work than the ordering of his shuttles or the divers motions of his beams. a smith minds the soldering of his irons and the sharpening of the axe more than those little things accessory to these main matters, as the kindling of the coals and preparing the stone-dust. yet farther, a carpenter would justly blame us, if we should affirm it is not his work to build houses or ships but to bore holes or to make mortar; and the muses would be implacably incensed with him that should say their business is only to make harps, pipes and such musical instruments, not the institution and correcting of manners and the government of those men's passions who are lovers of singing and masters of music. and agreeably copulation is not the work of venus, nor is drunkenness that of bacchus; but love and friendship, affection and familiarity, which are begot and improved by and the means of these. solon terms these works divine, and he professes he loves and now prosecutes them in his declining years as vigorously as ever in his youthful days. that mutual love between man and wife is the work of venus, the greatness of the pleasure affecting their bodies mixes and melts their very souls; divers others, having little or no acquaintance before, have yet contracted a firm and lasting friendship over a glass of wine, which like fire softened and melted their tempers, and disposed them for a happy union. but in such a company, and of such men as periander hath invited, there is no need of can and chalice, but the muses themselves throwing a subject of discourse among you, as it were a sober cup, wherein is contained much of delight and drollery and seriousness too, do hereby provoke, nourish, and increase friendship among you, allowing the cup to rest quietly upon the bowl, contrary to the rule which hesiod (hesiod, "works and days," 744.) gives for those who have more skill for carousing than for discoursing. though all the rest with stated rules we bound unmix'd, unmeasured are thy goblets crown'd ("iliad" iv. 261.) for it was the old greek way, as homer here tells us, to drink one to another in course and order. so ajax gave a share of his meat to his next neighbor. when mnesiphilus had discoursed after this manner, in comes chersias the poet, whom periander had lately pardoned and received into favor upon chilo's mediation. saith cherias: does not jupiter distribute to the gods their proportion and share sparingly and severally, as agamemnon did to his commanders when his guests pledged one another? if, o chersias, quoth cleodemus, as you narrate, certain pigeons bring him ambrosia every meal, winging with a world of hardship through the rocks called planctae (or wandering), can you blame him for his sparingness and frugality and dealing out to his guests by measure? i am satisfied, quoth chersias, and since we are fallen upon our old discourse of housekeeping, which of the company can remember what remains to be said thereof? there remains, if i mistake not, to show what that measure is which may content any man. cleobulus answered: the law has prescribed a measure for wise men; but as touching foolish ones i will tell you a story i once heard my father relate to my brother. on a certain time the moon begged of her mother a coat that would fit her. how can that be done, quoth the mother, for sometime you are full, sometimes the one half of you seems lost and perished, sometimes only a pair of horns appear. so, my chersias, to the desires of a foolish immoderate man no certain measure can be fitted; for according to the ebbing and flowing of his lust and appetite, and the frequent or seldom casualties that befall him, accordingly his necessities ebb and flow, not unlike aesop's dog, who, being pinched and ready to starve with the cold winter, was a mind to build himself a house; but when summer came on, he lay all along upon the ground, and stretching himself in the sun thought himself monstrous big, and thought it unnecessary and besides no small labor to build him a house portionable to that bulk and bigness. and do you not observe, o chersias, continues he, many poor men,--how one while they pinch their bellies, upon what short commons they live, how sparing and niggardly and miserable they are; and another while you may observe the same men as distrustful and covetous withal, as if the plenty of the city and county, the riches of king and kingdom were not sufficient to preserve them from want and beggary. when chersias had concluded this discourse, cleodemus began thus: we see you that are wise men possessing these outward goods after an unequal manner. good sweet sir, answered cleobulus, the law weaver-like hath distributed to every man a fitting, decent, adequate portion, and in your profession your reason does what the law does here,--when you feed, or diet, or physic your patient, you give not the quantity he desires, but what you judge to be convenient for each in his circumstances. ardalus inquires: epimenides, to abstain from all other victuals, and to content himself with a little composition of his own, which the greeks call [greek omitted] (hunger-relieving)? this he takes into his mouth and chews, and eats neither dinner nor supper. this instance obliged the whole company to be a little while silent, until thales in a jesting way replied, that epimenides did very wisely, for hereby he saved the trouble and charge of grinding and boiling his meat, as pittacus did. i myself sojourning as lesbos overheard my landlady, as she was very busy at her hand-mill, singing as she used to do her work, "grind mill; grind mill; for even pittacus the prince of great mitylene, grinds" [greek footnote ommitted]. quoth solon: ardalus, i wonder you have not read the law of epimenides's frugality in hesiod's writings, who prescribes him and others this spare diet; for he was the person that gratified epimenides with the seeds of this nutriment, when he directed him to inquire how great benefit a man might receive by mallows and asphodel (hesiod, "works and days," 41.) do you believe, said periander, that hesiod meant this literally; or rather that, being himself a great admirer of parsimony, he hereby intended to exhort men to use mean and spare diet, as most healthful and pleasant? for the chewing of mallows is very wholesome, and the stalk of asphodel is very luscious; but this "expeller of hunger and thirst" i take to be rather physic than natural food, consisting of honey and i know not what barbarian cheese, and of many and costly drugs fetched from foreign parts. if to make up this composition so many ingredients were requisite, and so difficult to come by and so expensive, hesiod might have kept his breath to cool his pottage, and never blessed the world with the discovery. and yet i admire how your landlord, when he went to perform the great purification for the delians not long since, could overlook the monuments and patterns of the first aliment which the people brought into the temple,--and, among other cheap fruits such as grow of themselves, the mallows and the asphodel; the usefulness and innocency whereof hesiod seemed in his work to magnify. moreover, quoth anacharsis, he affirms both plants to be great restoratives. you are in the right, quoth cleodemus; for it is evident hesiod was no ordinary physician, who could discourse so learnedly and judiciously of diet, of the nature of wines, and of the virtue of waters and baths, and of women, the proper times for procreation, and the site and position of infants in the womb; insomuch, that (as i take it) aesop deserves much more the name of hesiod's scholar and disciple than epimenides, whose great and excellent wisdom the fable of the nightingale and hawk demonstrates. but i would gladly hear solon's opinion in this matter; for having sojourned long at athens and being familiarly acquainted with epimenides, it is more than probable he might learn of him the grounds upon which he accustomed himself to so spare a diet. to what purpose, said solon, should i trouble him or myself to make inquiry in a matter so plain? for if it be a blessing next to the greatest to need little victuals, then it is the greatest felicity to need none at all. if i may have leave to deliver my opinion, quoth cleodemus, i must profess myself of a different judgment, especially now we sit at table; for as soon as the meat is taken away, what belongs to those gods that are the patrons of friendship and hospitality has been removed. as upon the removal of the earth, quoth thales, there must needs follow an universal confusion of all things, so in forbidding men meat, there must needs follow the dispersion and dissolution of the family, the sacred fire, the cups, the feasts and entertainment's, which are the principal and most innocent diversions of mankind; and so all the comforts of society are at end. for to men of business some recreation is necessary, and the preparation and use of victuals conduces much thereunto. again, to be without victuals would tend to the destruction of husbandry, for want whereof the earth would soon be overgrown with weeds, and through the sloth of men overflowed with waters. and together with this, all arts would fail which are supported and encouraged hereby; nay, more, take away hospitality and the use of victuals and the worship and honor of the gods will sink and perish; the sun will have but small and the moon yet smaller reverence if thy afford men only light and heat. and who will build an altar or offer sacrifices to jupiter pluvius, or to ceres the patroness of husbandmen, or to neptune the preserver of plants and trees? or how can bacchus be any longer termed the donor of all good things, if men make no further use of the good things he gives? what shall men sacrifice? what first-fruits shall they offer? in short, the subversion and confusion of the greatest blessings attend this opinion. promiscuously and indefatigable to pursue all sorts of pleasures i own to be brutish, and to avoid all with a suitable aversion equally blockish, let the mind then freely enjoy such pleasures as are agreeable to its nature and temper. but for the body, there is certainly no pleasure more harmless and commendable and fitting than that which springs from a plentiful table,--which is granted by all men, for, placing this in the middle, men converse with one another and share in the provision. as to the pleasures of the bed, men use these in the dark, reputing the use thereof shameful and beastly as well as the total disuse of the pleasures of the table. cleodemus having finished this long harangue, i began to this effect. you omit one thing, my friend, how they that decry food decry sleep too, and they that declaim against sleep declaim against dreams in the same breath, and so destroy the primitive and ancient way of divination. add to this, that our whole life will be of one form and fashion, and our soul enclosed in a body to no purpose; many and those the principal parts thereof are naturally so formed and fashioned as to be organs of nutriment; so the tongue, the teeth, the stomach, and the liver, whereof none are idle, none framed for other use, so that whosoever hath no need of nutriment has no need of his body; that is, in other words, no man hath any need of himself, for every man hath a body of his own. this i have thought fit to offer in vindication of our bellies; if solon or any other has anything to object to what i have said, i am willing to hear him. yea, doubtless, replies solon, or we may be reputed more injudicious than the egyptians. for when any person dies among them, they open him and show him so dissected to the sun; his guts they throw into the river, to the remaining parts they allow a decent burial, for they think the body now pure and clean; and to speak truly they are the foulest parts of the body, and like that lower hell crammed with dead carcasses and at the same time flowing with offensive rivers, such as flame with fire and are disturbed with tempests. no live creature feeds upon another living creature, but we first take away their lives, and in that action we do them great wrong. now the very plants have life in them,--that is clear and manifest, for we perceive they grow and spread. but to abstain from eating flesh (as they say orpheus of old did) is more a pretence than a real avoiding of an injury proceeding from the just use of meat. one way there is, and but one way, whereby a man may avoid offence, namely by being contented with his own, not coveting what belongs to his neighbor. but if a man's circumstances be such and so hard that he cannot subsist without wronging another man, the fault is god's, not his. the case being such with some persons, i would fain learn if it be not advisable to destroy, at the same time with injustice, these instruments of injustice, the belly, stomach, and liver, which have no sense of justice or appetite to honesty, and therefore may be fitly compared to your cook's implements, his knives and his caldrons, or to a baker's chimney and bins and kneading-tubs. verily one may observe the souls of some men confined to their bodies, as to a house of correction, barely to do the drudgery and to serve the necessities thereof. it was our own case but even now. while we minded our meat and our bellies, we had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear; but now the table is taken away, we are free to discourse among ourselves and to enjoy one another; and now our bellies are full, we have nothing else to do or care for. and if this condition and state wherein we at present are would last our whole life, we having no wants to fear nor riches to covet (for a desire of superfluities attends a desire of necessaries), would not our lives be much more comfortable and life itself much more desirable? yea, but cleodemus stiffly maintains the necessity of eating and drinking, else we shall need tables and cups, and shall not be able to offer sacrifice to ceres and proserpina. by a parity of reason there is a necessity there should be contentions and wars, that men may have bulwarks and citadels and fortifications by land, fleets and navies abroad at sea, and that having slain hundreds, we may offer hecatombs after the messenian manner. by this reason we shall find men grudging their own health, for (they will say) there will be no need of down or feather beds unless they are sick; and so those healing gods, and particularly esculapius, will be vast sufferers, for they will infallibly lose so many fat and rich sacrifices yearly. nay, the art of chirurgery will perish, and all those ingenious instruments that have been invented for the cure of man will lie by useless and insignificant. and what great difference is there between this and that? for meat is a medicine against hunger, and such as use a constant diet are said to cure themselves,--i mean such as use meat not for wantonness but of necessity. for it is plain, the prejudices we receive by feeding far surmount the pleasures. and the enjoyment of eating fills a very small place in our bodies and very little time. but why should i trouble you or myself with a catalogue of the many vexations which attend that man who is necessitated to provide for a family, and the many difficulties which distract him in his undertaking? for my part, i verily believe homer had an eye to this very thing, when, to prove the immortality of the gods, he made use of this very argument, that they were such because they used no victuals; for not the bread of man their life sustains, nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins; ("iliad," v. 341.) intimating meat to be the cause of death as well as the means of sustaining and supporting life. from hence proceed divers fatal distempers caused much more by fulness than by fasting; and to digest what we have eaten proves frequently a harder matter than to provide and procure what we eat. and when we solicitously inquire beforehand what we should do or how we should employ ourselves if we had not such care and business to take up our time, this is as if danaus's daughters should trouble their heads to know what they should do if they had no sieves to fill with water. we drudge and toil for necessaries, for want of better and nobler occupation. as slaves then who have gained their freedom do now and then those drudgeries and discharge those servile employments and offices for their own benefit which they undertook heretofore for their masters' advantage, so the mind of man, which at present is enslaved to the body and the service thereof, when once it becomes free from this slavery, will take care of itself, and spend its time in contemplation of truth without distraction or disturbance. such were our discourses upon this head, o nicarchus. and before solon had fully finished, in came gorgias, periander's brother, who was just returned from taenarum, whither he had been sent by the advice of the oracle to sacrifice to neptune and to conduct a deputation. upon his entrance we welcomed him home; and periander having among the rest saluted him, gorgias sat by him upon a bed, and privately whispered something to his brother which we could not hear. periander by his various gestures and motions discovered different affections; sometimes he seemed sad and melancholic, by and by disturbed and angry; frequently he looked as doubtful and distrustful men use to do; awhile after he lifts up his eyes, as is usual with men in a maze. at last recovering himself, saith he, i have a mind to impart to you the contents of this embassy; but i scarce dare do it, remembering thales's aphorism, how things impossible or incredible are to be concealed and only things credible and probable are to be related. bias answered, i crave leave to explain thales's saying, we may distrust enemies, even though they speak things credible, and trust friends, even though they relate things incredible; and i suppose by enemies he meant vicious men and foolish, and by friends, wise and good men. then, brother gorgias, quoth periander, i pray relate the whole story particularly. gorgias in obedience to his brother's command began his story thus:-when we had fasted now for three days and offered sacrifice upon each of those days, we were all resolved to sit up the third night and spend it in pastime and dancing. the moon shone very bright upon the water, and the sea was exceeding calm and still; this we saw, for we sported ourselves upon the shore. being thus taken up, all of a sudden we espied a wonderful spectacle off at sea, making with incredible expedition to the adjoining promontory. the violence of the motion made the sea foam again, and the noise was so loud, that the whole company forsook their sport and ran together toward the place, admiring what the matter should be. before we could make a full discovery of the whole, the motion was so rapid, we perceived divers dolphins, some swimming in a ring or circle, others hastening amain to that part of the shore which was most shallow, and others following after and (as it were) bringing up the rear. in the middle there was a certain heap which we could perceive above the water; but we could not distinctly apprehend what it was, till drawing near the shore we saw all the dolphins flocking together, and having made near the land they safely surrendered their charge, and left out of danger a man breathing and shaking himself. they returned to the promontory, and there seemed to rejoice more than before for this their fortunate undertaking. divers in the company were affrighted and ran away; myself and a few more took courage, and went on to see and satisfy ourselves what this unusual matter might be; there we found and instantly knew our old acquaintance arion the musician, who told us his name. he wore that very garment he used when he strove for mastery. we brought him into our tent and found he had received no damage in his passage, save only a little lassitude by the violence of the motion. he told us the whole story of his adventure,--a story incredible to all but such as saw it with their eyes. he told us how, when he had determined to leave italy, being hastened away by periander's letters, he went aboard a corinthian merchantman then in port and ready to sail; being off at sea with the winds favorable, he observed the seamen bent to ruin him, and the master of the vessel told him as much, and that they purposed to execute their design upon him that very night. in this distress, the poor man (as if inspired by his good genius) girds about him his heretofore victorious, now his mourning cloak, with a brave resolution to compose and sing his own epitaph, as the swans when they apprehend the approaches of death are reported to do. being thus habited, he told the seamen he was minded to commit the protection of himself and his fellow-passengers to the providence of the gods in a pythian song; then standing upon the poop near the side of the vessel, and having invoked the help and assistance of all the sea gods, he strikes up briskly and sings to his harp. before he had half finished his carol, the sun set, and he could discern peloponnesus before him. the seamen thought it tedious to tarry for the night, wherefore they resolved to murder him immediately, to which purpose they unsheathed their swords. seeing this, and observing the steersman covering his face, he leaped into the sea as far as he could; but before his body sunk he found himself supported by dolphins. at first he was surprised with care and trouble; but by and by, finding himself marching forward with much ease and security, and observing a whole shoal of dolphins flocking about him and joyfully contending which should appear most forward and serviceable in his preservation, and discerning the vessel at a considerable distance behind, he apprehended the nimbleness of his porters; then, and not till then, his fears forsook him, and he professed he was neither so fearful of death nor desirous of life as he was full of ambitious desire, that he might show to all men that he stood in the grace and favor of the gods, and that he might himself have a firm belief in them. in his passage, as he lifted up his eyes toward heaven, and beheld the stars glittering and twinkling and the moon full and glorious, and the sea calm all about her as she seemed to rise out of it, and yielding him (as it were) a beaten track; he declared, he thought god's justice had more eyes than one, and that with these innumerable eyes the gods beheld what was acted here below both by sea and land. with such contemplations he performed his voyage less anxiously, which much abated the tediousness thereof and was a comfort and refreshment to him in his solitude and danger. at last, arriving near the promontory which was both steep and high, and fearing danger in a straight course and direct line, they unanimously veered about, and making to shore with a little compass for security they delivered arion to us in safety, so that he plainly perceived and with thanks acknowledged a providence. when arion had finished this narrative of his escape, i asked him (quoth gorgias) whither the ship was bound; he told me for corinth, but it would not be there very suddenly, for when he leaped out of the ship and was carried (as he conceived) about five hundred furlongs, he perceived a calm, which must needs much retard their arrival who were aboard. gorgias added that, having learned the names of the pilot and master and the colors of the ship, he immediately despatched out ships and soldier to examine all the ports, all this while keeping arion concealed, lest the criminals should upon notice of his deliverance escape the pursuit of justice. this action happened very luckily; for as soon as he arrived at corinth, news was brought him that the same ship was in port, and that his party had seized it and secured all the men, merchants and others. whereupon periander commanded gorgias's discretion and zeal, desiring him to proceed and lose no time, but immediately to clap them in close prison, and to suffer none to come at them to give the least notice of arion's miraculous escape. gentlemen, quoth aesop, i remember you derided my dialogue of the daws and rooks; and now you can admire and believe as improbable a story of dolphins. you are mightily out, said i, for this is no novel story which we believe, but it is recorded in the annals of ino and athamas above a thousand years ago. these passages are supernatural, quoth solon and much above our reason; what befell hesiod is of a lower kind, and more proper for our discourse, and if you have not heard of it before, it is worth your hearing. hesiod once sojourned at the same house in locris with a certain milesian. in this his sojourning time it happened the gentleman's daughter was got with child by the milesian which being discovered, the whole family concluded hesiod, if not guilty, must be privy to the fact. his innocence was but a weak fence against their jealousy and aspersions; and therefore, rashly censuring him guilty, the brothers of the woman waylaid him in his return home, and slew him and his companion troilus near the shrine of nemean jove in locris. their carcasses they threw into the sea; that of troilus was carried into the river daphnus, and rested upon a certain rock compassed with waters, just above the surface of the sea, which rock bears his name to this day. the body of hesiod was no sooner fallen upon the surface of the water, but a company of dolphins received it, and conveyed it to rhium and molyeria. it happened the locrians were assembled at rhium that day to feast and make merry according to the custom which continues still among them. as soon as they perceived a carcass floating or rather swimming towards them, they hastened, not without admiration, to see what it was; and knowing the body to be hesiod's, they instantly resolved to find out the murderers. it proved an easy discovery. after conviction they threw them headlong alive into the sea, and ordered their houses to be demolished to the very foundations. the body they buried in the grove of the temple of jove, that no foreigner might find it out; the reason of this act was that the orchomenians had searched far and near for it at the instigation of the oracle, who promised them the greatest felicity if they could get the bones of hesiod and bury them in their city. now if dolphins are so favorable to dead men, it is very probable they have a strong affection for the living, especially for such as delight in music, whether vocal or instrumental. and this we know undoubtedly, that these creatures delight infinitely in music; they love it, and if any man sings or plays, they will quietly come by the side of the ship, and listen till the music is ended. when children bathe in the water and sport themselves, you shall have a parcel of them flock together and sport and swim by them; and they may do it the more securely, since it is a breach of the law of nature to hurt them. you never heard of any man that fishes for them purposely or hurts them wilfully, unless falling into the nets they spoil the sport, and so, like bad children, are corrected for their misdemeanors. i very well remember the lesbians told me how a maid of their town was preserved from drowning by them. it was a very true story, quoth pittacus, and there are divers still alive who will attest it, if need be. the builders or founders of lesbos were commanded by the oracle to sail till they came to a haven called mesogaeum, there they should sacrifice a bull to neptune, and for the honor of amphitrite and the sea-nymphs they should offer a virgin. the principal persons in this colony were seven in number; the eighth was one echelaus by name, and appointed head of the rest by the oracle himself; and he was a bachelor. a daughter of one of these seven was to be sacrificed, but who it should be was to be decided by lot, and the lot fell upon smintheus's sister. her they dressed most richly, and so apparelled they conveyed her in abundance of state to the water-side, and having composed a prayer for her, they were now ready to throw her overboard. there was in the company a certain ingenuous young gentleman whose name was enalus; he was desperately in love with this young lady, and his love prompted him to endeavor all he could for her preservation, or at least to perish in the attempt. in the very moment she was to be cast away, he clasps her in his arms and throws himself and her together into the sea. shortly after there was a flying report they were both conveyed safe to land. a while after enalus was seen at lesbos, who gave out they were preserved by dolphins. i could tell you stories more incredible than these, such as would amuse some and please others; but it is impossible to command men's faith. the sea was so tempestuous and rough, the people were afraid to come too near the waters, when enalus arrived. a number of polypuses followed him even to neptune's temple, the biggest and strongest of which carried a great stone. this enalus dedicated, and this stone is therefore called enalus to this day. to be short and to speak all in a few words,--he that knows how to distinguish between the impossible and the unusual, to make a difference between the unlikely and the absurd, to be neither too credulous nor too distrustful,--he hath learned your lesson, do not overdo. ([greek omitted], ne quid nimis.) anacharsis after all this discourse spake to this purpose: since thales has asserted the being of a soul in all the principal and most noble parts of the universe, it is no wonder that the most commendable acts are governed by an overruling power; for, as the body is the organ of the soul, so the soul is an instrument in the hand of god. now as the body has many motions of its own proceeding from itself, but the best and most from the soul, so the soul acts some things by its own power, but in most things it is subordinate to the will and power of god, whose glorious instrument it is. to me it seems highly unreasonable--and i should be but too apt to censure the wisdom of the gods, if i were convinced--that they use fire, and water, and wind, and clouds, and rain for the preservation and welfare of some and for the detriment and destruction of others, while at the same time they make no use of living creatures that are doubtless more serviceable to their ends than bows are to the scythians or harps or pipes to the greeks. chersias the poet broke off this discourse, and told the company of divers that were miraculously preserved to his certain knowledge, and more particularly of cypselus, periander's father, who being newly born, his adversary sent a party of bloody fellows to murder him. they found the child in his nurse's arms, and seeing him smile innocently upon them, they had not the heart to hurt him, and so departed; but presently recalling themselves and considering the peremptoriness of their orders, they returned and searched for him, but could not find him, for his mother had hid him very carefully in a chest. (called [greek omitted] in greek, whence the child was named cypelus.(g.)) when he came to years of discretion, and understood the greatness of his former danger and deliverance, he consecrated a temple at delphi to apollo, by whose care he conceived himself preserved from crying in that critical time, and by his cries from betraying his own life. pittacus, addressing his discourse to periander, said: it is well done of chersias to make mention of that shrine, for this brings to my mind a question i several times purposed to ask you but still forgot, namely,--to what intent all those frogs were carved upon the palm-tree before the door, and how they affect either the deity or the dedicator? periander remitted him to chersias for answer, as a person better versed in these matters for he was present when cypselus consecrated the shrine. but chersias smiling would not satisfy them, until they resolved him the meaning of these aphorisms; "do not overdo," "know thyself," but particularly and principally this,--which had scared divers from wedlock and others from suretyship and others for speaking at all,--"promise, and you are ruined." what need we to explain to you these, when you yourself have so mightily magnified aesop's comment upon each of them. aesop replied: when chersias is disposed to jest with me upon these subjects, and to jest seriously, he is pleased to father such sayings and sentences upon homer, who, bringing in hector furiously flying upon others, yet at another time represents him as flying from ajax son of telamon, ("iliad," xi. 542.)--an argument that hector knew himself. and homer made ulysses use the saying "do not overdo," when he besought his friend diomedes not to commend him, too much nor yet to censure him too much. and for suretyship he exposes it as a matter unsafe, nay highly dangerous, declaring that to be bound for idle and wicked men is full of hazard. ("iliad," x. 249; "odyssey," viii. 351.) to confirm this, chersias reported how jupiter had thrown ate headlong out of heaven, because she was by when he made the promise about the birth of hercules whereby he was circumvented. here solon broke in: i advise, that we now give ear to homer,- but now the night extends her awful shade: the goddess parts you: be the night obeyed. ("iliad," vii. 282.) if it please the company then, let us sacrifice to the muses, to neptune, and to amphitrite, and so bid each adieu for this night. this was the conclusion of that meeting, my dear nicarchus. end of thirteen---------how a young man ought to hear poems. though it may be allowed to be a question fit for the determination of those concerning whom cato said, their palates are more sensitive than their minds, whether that saying of philoxenus the poet be true or no, the most savory flesh is that which is no flesh, and fish that is no fish. yet this to me, marcus sedatus, is out of question, that those precepts of philosophy which seem not to be delivered with a designed gravity, such as becomes philosophers, take most with persons that are very young, and meet with a more ready acceptance and compliance from them. whence it is that they do not only read through aesop's fables and the fictions of poets and the abaris of heraclides and ariston's lyco; but also such doctrines as relate to the souls of men, if something fabulous be mixed with them, with an excess of pleasure that borders on enthusiasm. wherefore we are not only to govern their appetites in the delights of eating and drinking, but also (and much more) to inure them to a like temperance in reading and hearing, that, while they make use of enjoyment as a sauce, they may pursue that which is wholesome and profitable in those things which they read. for neither can a city be secure if but one gate be left open to receive the enemy, though all the rest be shut; nor a young man safe, though he be sufficiently fortified against the assaults of all other pleasures, whilst he is without any guard against those of the ear. yea, the nearer the commerce is betwixt the delights of that sense and those of the mind and reason, by so much the more, when he lies open on that side, is he apt to be debauched and corrupted thereby. seeing therefore we cannot (and perhaps would not if we could) debar young men of the size of my soclarus and thy cleander altogether from the reading of poets, yet let us keep the stricter guard upon them, as those who need a guide to direct them in their reading more than on their journeys. upon which consideration, i find myself disposed to send thee at present in writing that discourse concerning poetry which i had lately an occasion to deliver by word of mouth; that, when thou hast read it over thyself, thou mayst also make such use of it, if thou judgest it may be serviceable to that purpose, as those which are engaged to drink hard do of amulets (or preservatives against drunkenness),--that is, that thou mayst communicate it to cleander, to prepossess him therewith; seeing he is naturally endowed with a brisk, piercing, and daring wit, and therefore more prone to be inveigled by that sort of study. they say of the fish called polypus that his head in one respect is very good, but in another very naughty food; because, though it be very luscious to eat, yet it is thought to disturb the fancy with frightful and confused dreams. and the like observation may be made concerning poetry, that it affords sweet and withal wholesome nourishment to the minds of young men, but yet it contains likewise no less matter of disturbance and emotion to them that want a right conduct in the study thereof. for of it also, as well as of egypt, may it be said that (to those who will use it) its over-fertile and luxuriant field medicines and poisons intermixt doth yield; for therein love with soft passions and rich language drest oft steals the heart out of th' ingenuous breast. ("odyssey," iv. 230; "iliad," xiv. 216.) and indeed such only are endangered thereby, for the charms of that art ordinarily affect not those that are downright sots and naturally incapable of learning. wherefore, when simonides was asked why of all men he could not deceive the thessalians, his answer was, because they are not so well bred as to be capable of being cajoled by me. and gorgias used to call tragical poems cheats, wherein he that did cheat was juster than he that did not cheat, and he that was cheated was wiser than he that was not cheated. it deserves therefore our consideration, whether we shall put young men into epicurus's boat,--wherein, having their ears stopped with wax, as those of the men of ithaca were, they shall be obliged to sail by and not so much as touch at poetry,--or rather keep a guard on them, so as to oblige their judgments by principles of right reason to use it aright, and preserve them from being seduced to their hurt by that which affords them so much delight. for neither did lycurgus, the valiant son of dryas (as homer calls him) ("iliad," vi. 130.) act like a man of sound reason in the course which he took to reform his people that were much inclined to drunkenness, by travelling up and down to destroy all the vines in the country; whereas he should have ordered that every vine should have a well of water near it, that (as plato saith) the drunken deity might be reduced to temperance by a sober one. for water mixed with wine takes away the hurtful spirits, while it leaves the useful ones in it. neither should we cut down or destroy the muses' vine, poetry; but where we perceive it luxuriates and grows wild through an ungoverned appetite of applause, there ought we to prune away or keep under the fabulous and theatrical branches thereof; and where we find any of the graces linked to any of the muses,--that is, where the lusciousness and tempting charms of language are not altogether barren and unprofitable,--there let us make use of philosophy to incorporate with it. for as, where the mandrake grows near the vine and so communicates something of its force thereto, the wine that is made of its grapes makes the sleep of those that drink it more refreshing; so doth the tempering poetry with the principles of philosophy and allaying their roughness with its fictions render the study of them more easy and the relish of them more grateful to young learners. wherefore those that would give their minds to philosophical studies are not obliged to avoid poetry altogether, but rather to introduce themselves to philosophy by poems, accustoming themselves to search for and embrace that which may profit in that which pleaseth them, and rejecting and discarding that wherein they find nothing of this nature. for this discrimination is the first step to learning; and when this is attained, then, according to what sophocles saith,- to have begun well what we do intend gives hope and prospect of as good an end. let us therefore in the first place possess those whom we initiate in the study of poetry with this notion (as one which they ought always to have at hand), that 'tis frequently the poet's guise to intermingle truth with lies;-which they do sometimes with and sometimes against their wills. they do it with their wills, because they find strict truth too rigid to comply with that sweetness and gracefulness of expression, which most are taken with, so readily as fiction doth. for real truth, though it disgust never so much, must be told as it is, without alteration; but that which is feigned in a discourse can easily yield and shift its garb from the distasteful to that which is more pleasing. and indeed, neither the measures nor the tropes nor the grandeur of words nor the aptness of metaphors nor the harmony of the composition gives such a degree of elegance and gracefulness to a poem as a well-ordered and artificial fiction doth. but as in pictures the colors are more delightful to the eye than the lines because those give them a nearer resemblance to the persons they were made for, and render them the more apt to deceive the beholder; so in poems we are more apt to be smitten and fall in love with a probable fiction than with the greatest accuracy that can be observed in measures and phrases, where there is nothing fabulous or fictitious joined with it. wherefore socrates, being induced by some dreams to attempt something in poetry, and finding himself unapt, by reason that he had all his lifetime been the champion of severe truth, to hammer out of his own invention a likely fiction, made choice of aesop's fables to turn into verse; as judging nothing to be true poetry that had in it nothing of falsehood. for though we have known some sacrifices performed without pipes and dances, yet we own no poetry which is utterly destitute of fable and fiction. whence the verses of empedocles and parmenides, the theriaca of nicander, and the sentences of theognis, are rather to be accounted speeches than poems, which, that they might not walk contemptibly on foot, have borrowed from poetry the chariot of verse, to convey them the more creditably through the world. whensoever therefore anything is spoken in poems by any noted and eminently famous man, concerning gods or daemons or virtue, that is absurd or harsh, he that takes such sayings for truths is thereby misled in his apprehension and corrupted with an erroneous opinion. but he that constantly keeps in his mind and maintains as his principle that the witchcraft of poetry consists in fiction, he that can at all turns accost it in this language,- riddle of art! like which no sphinx beguiles; whose face on one side frowns while th' other smiles! why cheat'st thou, with pretence to make us wise, and bid'st sage precepts in a fool's disguise?-such a one, i say, will take no harm by it, nor admit from it any absurd thing into his belief. but when he meets in poetry with expressions of neptune's rending the earth to pieces and dicovering infernal regions, ("see iliad," xx. 57.) he will be able to check his fears of the reality of any such accident; and he will blame himself for his anger against apollo for the chief commander of the greeks,- whom at a banquet, whiles he sings his praise and speaks him fair, yet treacherously he slays. ("from aeschylus" the whole passage is quoted in plato's "republic," end of book ii. (g.).) yea, he will repress his tears for achilles and agamemnon, while they are resented as mourning after their death, and stretching forth their limber and feeble hands to express their desire to live again. and if at any time the charms of poetry transport him into any disquieting passions, he will quickly say to himself, as homer very elegantly (considering the propension of that sex to listen after fables) says in his necyia, or relation of the state of the dead,- but from the dark dominions speed thy way, and climb the steep ascent to upper day; to thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell, the woes, the horrors, and the laws of hell. ("odyssey," xi. 223.) such things as i have touched upon are those which the poets willingly feign. but more there are which they do not feign, but believing themselves as their own proper judgments, they put fictitious colors upon them to ingratiate them to us. as when homer says of jupiter,- jove lifts the golden balances, that show the faces of mortal men, and things below. here each contending hero's lot he tries, and weighs with equal hand their destinies low sinks the scale surcharged with hector's fate; heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight. ("iliad," xxii. 210.) to this fable aeschylus hath accommodated a whole tragedy which he calls psychostasia, wherein he introduceth thetis and aurora standing by jupiter's balances, and deprecating each of them the death of her son engaged in a duel. now there is no man but sees that this fable is a creature of the poet's fancy, designed to delight or scare the reader. but this other passage,- great jove is made the treasurer of wars; (ibid. iv. 84.) and this other also,- when a god means a noble house to raze, he frames one rather than he'll want a cause: (from the "niobe" of aeschylus, frag. 151.) these passages, i say, express their judgment and belief who thereby discover and suggest to us the ignorant or mistaken apprehensions they had of the deities. moreover, almost every one knows nowadays, that the portentous fancies and contrivances of stories concerning the state of the dead are accommodated to popular apprehensions,--that the spectres and phantasms of burning rivers and horrid regions and terrible tortures expressed by frightful names are all mixed with fable and fiction, as poison with food; and that neither homer nor pindar nor sophocles ever believed themselves when they wrote at this rate:- there endless floods of shady darkness stream from the vast caves, where mother night doth teem; and, there ghosts o'er the vast ocean's waves did glide, by the leucadian promontory's side; ("odyssey," xxiv. 11.) and, there from th' unfathomed gulf th' infernal lake through narrow straits recurring tides doth make. and yet, as many of them as deplore death as a lamentable thing, or the want of burial after death as a calamitous condition, are wont to break out into expressions of this nature:- o pass not by, my friend; nor leave me here without a grave, and on that grave a tear; ("odyssey," xi. 72.) and, then to the ghosts the mournful soul did fly, sore grieved in midst of youth and strength to die; ("iliad," xvi. 856.) and again, 'tis sweet to see the light. o spare me then, till i arrive at th' usual age of men: nor force my unfledged soul from hence, to know the doleful state of dismal shades below. (euripides, "iphigenia at aulus," 1218.) these, i say, are the speeches of men persuaded of these things, as being possessed by erroneous opinions; and therefore they touch us the more nearly and torment us inwardly, because we ourselves are full of the same impotent passion from which they were uttered. to fortify us therefore against expressions of this nature, let this principle continually ring in our ears, that poetry is not at all solicitous to keep to the strict measure of truth. and indeed, as to what that truth in these matters is, even those men themselves who make it their only study to learn and search it out confess that they can hardly discover any certain footsteps to guide them in that inquiry. let us therefore have these verses of empedocles, in this case, at hand:- no sight of man's so clear, no ear so quick, no mind so piercing, that's not here to seek; as also those of xenophanes:- the truth about the gods and ghosts, no man e'er was or shall be that determine can; and lastly, that passage concerning socrates, in plato, where he by the solemnity of an oath disclaims all knowledge of those things. for those who perceive that the searching into such matters makes the heads of philosophers themselves giddy cannot but be the less inclined to regard what poets say concerning them. and we shall fix our young men more if, when we enter him in the poets, we first describe poetry to him and tell him that it is an imitating art and is in many respects like unto painting; not only acquainting him with that common saying, that poetry is vocal painting and painting silent poetry, but showing him, moreover, that when we see a lizard or an ape or the face of a thersites in a picture, we are surprised with pleasure and wonder at it, not because of any beauty in the things, but for the likeness of the draught. for it is repugnant to the nature of that which is itself foul to be at the same time fair; and therefore it is the imitation--be the thing imitated beautiful or ugly--that, in case it do express it to the life, is commanded; and on the contrary, if the imitation make a foul thing to appear fair, it is dispraised because it observes not decency and likeness. now some painters there are that paint uncomely actions; as timotheus drew medea killing her children; theon, orestes murdering his mother; and parrhasius, ulysses counterfeiting madness; yea, chaerephanes expressed in picture the unchaste converse of women with men. now in such cases a young man is to be familiarly acquainted with this notion, that, when men praise such pictures, they praise not the actions represented but only the painter's art which doth so lively express what was designed in them. wherefore, in like manner, seeing poetry many times describes by imitation foul actions and unseemly passions and manners, the young student must not in such descriptions (although performed never so cleverly and commendably) believe all that is said as true or embrace it as good, but give its due commendation so far only as it suits the subject treated of. for as, when we hear the grunting of hogs and the shrieking of pulleys and the rustling of wind and the roaring of seas, we are, it may be, disturbed and displeased, and yet when we hear any one imitating these or the like noises handsomely (as parmenio did that of an hog, and theodorus that of a pulley), we are well pleased; and as we avoid (as an unpleasing spectacle) the sight of sick persons and of a man full of ulcers, and yet are delighted to be spectators of the philoctetes of aristophon and the jocasta of silanion, wherein such wasting and dying persons are well acted; so must the young scholar, when he reads in a poem of thersites the buffoon or sisyphus the whoremaster or batrachus the bawd speaking or doing anything, so praise the artificial managery of the poet, adapting the expressions to the persons, as withal to look on the discourses and actions so expressed as odious and abominable. for the goodness of things themselves differs much from the goodness of the imitation of them; the goodness of the latter consisting only in propriety and aptness to represent the former. whence to foul acts foul expressions are most suitable and proper. as the shoes of demonides the cripple (which, when he had lost them, he wished might suit the feet of him that stole them) were but poor shoes, but yet fit for him; so we may say of such expressions as these:- if t'is necessary an unjust act to do, it is best to do it for a throne; (euripides, "phoenissae," 524.) get the repute of just, and in it do all things whence gain may come; a talent dowry! could i sleep, or live, if thee i should neglect? and should i not in hell tormented be, could i be guilty of such sacrilege? (from menander.) these, it is true, are wicked as well as false speeches, but yet are decent enough in the mouth of an eteocles, an ixion, and a griping usurer. if therefore we mind our children that the poets write not such things as praising and approving them, but do really account them base and vicious and therefore accommodate such speeches to base and vicious persons, they will never be damnified by them from the esteem they have of the poets in whom they meet with them. but, on the contrary, the suspicions insinuated into them of the persons will render the words and actions ascribed to them suspected for evil, because proceeding from such evil men. and of this nature is homer's representation of paris, when he describes him running out of the battle into helen's bed. for in that he attributes no such indecent act to any other, but only to that incontinent and adulterous person, he evidently declares that he intends that relation to import a disgrace and reproach to such intemperance. in such passages therefore we are carefully to observe whether or not the poet himself do anywhere give any intimation that he dislikes the things he makes such persons say; which, in the prologue to his thais menander does, in these words:- therefore, my muse, describe me now a whore, fair, bold, and furnished with a nimble tongue; one that ne'er scruples to do lovers wrong; that always craves, and denied shuts her door; that truly loves no man, yet, for her ends, affection true to every man pretends. but homer of all the poets does it best. for he doth beforehand, as it were, bespeak dislike of the evil things and approbation of the good things he utters. of the latter take these instances:- he readily did the occasion take, and sweet and comfortable words he spake; ("odyssey," vi. 148.) by him he stood, and with soft speeches quelled the wrath which in his heated bosom swelled. ("iliad," ii. 180.) and for the former, he so performs it as in a manner solemnly to forbid us to use or heed such speeches as those he mentions, as being foolish and wicked. for example, being to tell us how uncivilly agamemnon treated the priest, he premises these words of his own,- not so atrides: he with kingly pride repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied; (ibid. i. 24.) intimating the insolency and unbecomingness of his answer. and when he attributes this passionate speech to achilles,- o monster, mix'd of insolence and fear, thou dog in forehead, and in heart a deer! (ibid. i. 225.) he accompanies it with this censure,- nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, which thus redoubling on atrides broke; (ibid. i. 223.) for it was unlikely that speaking in such anger he should observe any rules of decency. and he passeth like censures on actions. as on achilles's foul usage of hector's carcass,- gloomy he said, and (horrible to view) before the bier the bleeding hector threw. ("iliad," xxiii. 24.) and in like manner he doth very decently shut up relations of things said or done, by adding some sentence wherein he declares his judgment of them. as when he personates some of the gods saying, on the occasion of the adultery of mars and venus discovered by vulcan's artifice,- see the swift god o'ertaken by the lame! thus ill acts prosper not, but end in shame. ("odyssey," viii. 329.) and thus concerning hector's insolent boasting he says,- with such big words his mind proud hector eased, but venerable juno he displeased. ("iliad," viii. 198.) and when he speaks of pandarus's shooting, he adds,- he heard, and madly at the motion pleased, his polish'd bow with hasty rashness seized. (ibid. iv. 104.) now these verbal intimations of the minds and judgments of poets are not difficult to be understood by any one that will heedfully observe them. but besides these, they give us other hints from actions. as euripides is reported, when some blamed him for bringing such an impious and flagitious villain as ixion upon the stage, to have given this answer: but yet i brought him not off till i had fastened him to a torturing wheel. this same way of teaching by mute actions is to be found in homer also, affording us useful contemplations upon those very fables which are usually most disliked in him. these some men offer force to, that they may reduce them to allegories (which the ancients called [greek omitted]), and tell us that venus committing adultery with mars, discovered by the sun, is to be understood thus: that when the star called venus is in conjunction with that which hath the name of mars, bastardly births are produced, and by the sun's rising and discovering them they are not concealed. so will they have juno's dressing herself so accurately to tempt jupiter, and her making use of the girdle of venus to inflame his love, to be nothing else but the purification of that part of the air which draweth nearest to the nature of fire. as if we were not told the meaning of those fables far better by the poet himself. for he teacheth us in that of venus, if we heed it, that light music and wanton songs and discourses which suggest to men obscene fancies debauch their manners, and incline them to an unmanly way of living in luxury and wantonness, of continually haunting the company of women, and of being given to fashions, that their garb may please, hot baths, and couches where they loll at case. and therefore also he brings in ulysses directing the musician thus,- leave this, and sing the horse, out of whose womb the gallant knights that conquered troy did come; ("odyssey," viii. 249 and 492.) evidently teaching us that poets and musicians ought to receive the arguments of their songs from sober and understanding men. and in the other fable of juno he excellently shows that the conversation of women with men, and the favors they receive from them procured by sorcery, witchcraft, or other unlawful arts, are not only short, unstable, and soon cloying, but also in the issue easily turned to loathing and displeasure, when once the pleasure is over. for so jupiter there threatens juno, when he tells her,- hear this, remember, and our fury dread, nor pull the unwilling vengeance on thy head; lest arts and blandishments successless prove thy soft deceits and well dissembled love. ("iliad," xv. 32.) for the fiction and representation of evil acts, when it withal acquaints us with the shame and damage befalling the doers, hurts not but rather profits him that reads them. for which end philosophers make use of examples for our instruction and correction out of historical collections; and poets do the very same thing, but with this difference, that they invent fabulous examples themselves. there was one melanthius, who (whether in jest or earnest he said it, it matters not much) affirmed that the city of athens owed its preservation to the dissensions and factions that were among the orators, giving withal this reason for his assertion, that thereby they were kept from inclining all of them to one side, so that by means of the differences among those statesmen there were always some that drew the saw the right way for the defeating of destructive counsels. and thus it is too in the contradictions among poets, which, by lessening the credit of what they say, render them the less powerful to do mischief; and therefore, when comparing one saying with another we discover their contrariety, we ought to adhere to the better side. as in these instances:- the gods, my son, deceive poor men oft-times. ans. 'tis easy, sir, on god to lay our crimes. 'tis comfort to thee to be rich, is't not! ans. no, sir, 'tis bad to be a wealthy sot. die rather than such toilsome pains to take. ans. to call god's service toil's a foul mistake. such contrarieties as these are easily solved, if (as i said) we teach youth to judge aright and to give the better saying preference. but if we chance to meet with any absurd passages without any others at their heels to confute them, we are then to overthrow them with such others as elsewhere are to be found in the same author. nor must we be offended with the poet or grieved at him, but only at the speeches themselves, which he utters either according to the vulgar manner of speaking or, it may be, but in drollery. so, when thou readest in homer of gods thrown out of heaven headlong one by another, or gods wounded by men and quarrelling and brawling with each other, thou mayest readily, if thou wilt, say to him,- sure thy invention here was sorely out, or thou hadst said far better things, no doubt; ("iliad," viii. 358.) yea, and thou dost so elsewhere, and according as thou thinkest, to wit, in these passages of thine:- the gods, removed from all that men doth grieve, a quiet and contented life do live. herein the immortal gods forever blest feel endless joys and undisturbed rest. the gods, who have themselves no cause to grieve, for wretched man a web of sorrow weave. (ibid. vi. 138; "odyssey," vi. 46; "iliad," xxiv, 526.) for these argue sound and true opinions of the gods; but those other were only feigned to raise passions in men. again, when euripides speaks at this rate,- the gods are better than we men by far, and yet by them we oft deceived are,-may do well to quote him elsewhere against himself where he says better,- if gods do wrong, surely no gods there are. so also, when pindar, saith bitterly and keenly, no law forbids us anything to do, whereby a mischief may befall a foe, tell him: but, pindar, thou thyself sayest elsewhere, the pleasure which injurious acts attends always in bitter consequences ends. and when sophocles speaks thus, sweet is the gain, wherein to lie and cheat adds the repute of wit to what we get, tell him: but we have heard thee say far otherwise, when the account's cast up, the gain's but poor which by a lying tongue augments the store. and as to what he saith of riches, to wit:- wealth, where it minds to go, meets with no stay; for where it finds not, it can make a way; many fair offers doth the poor let go, and lose his talent because his purse is low; the fair tongue makes, where wealth can purchase it, the foul face beautiful, the fool a wit:-against this the reader may set in opposition divers other sayings of the same author. for example, from honor poverty doth not debar, where poor men virtuous and deserving are. whate'er fools think, a man is ne'er the worse if he be wise, though with an empty purse. the comfort which he gets who wealth enjoys, the vexing care by which 'tis kept destroys. and menander also somewhere magnifies a voluptuous life, and inflames the minds of vain persons with these amorous strains, the glorious sun no living thing doth see, but what's a slave to love as well as we. but yet elsewhere, on the other side, he fastens on us and pulls us back to the love of virtue, and checks the rage of lust, when he says thus, the life that is dishonorably spent, be it ne'er so pleasant, yields no true content. for these lines are contrary to the former, as they are also better and more profitable; so that by comparing them considerately one cannot but either be inclined to the better side, or at least flag in the belief of the worse. but now, supposing that any of the poets themselves afford no such correcting passages to solve what they have said amiss, it will then be advisable to confront them with the contrary sayings of other famous men, and therewith to sway the scales of our judgment to the better side. as, when alexis tempts to debauchery in these verses, the wise man knows what of all things is best, whilst choosing pleasure he slights all the rest. he thinks life's joys complete in these three sorts, to drink and eat, and follow wanton sports; and what besides seems to pretend to pleasure, if it betide him, counts it over measure, we must remember that socrates said the contrary, to wit: that they are bad men who live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live. and against the man that wrote in this manner, he that designs to encounter with a knave, an equal stock of knavery must have, seeing he herein advises us to follow other vicious examples, that of diogenes may well be returned, who being asked by what means a man might revenge himself upon his enemy, answered, by becoming himself a good and honest man. and the same diogenes may be quoted also against sophocles, who, writing of the sacred mysteries, caused great grief and despair to multitudes of men:- most happy they whose eyes are blest to see the mysteries which here contained be, before they die! for only they have joy. in th' other world; the rest all ills annoy. this passage being read to diogenes, what then! says he, shall the condition of pataecion, the notorious robber, after death be better than that of epaminondas, merely for his being initiated in these mysteries? in like manner, when one timotheus on the theatre, singing of the goddess diana, called her furious, raging, possessed, mad, cinesias suddenly interrupted him, may thy daughter, timotheus, be such a goddess! and witty also was that of bion to theognis, who said,- one cannot say nor do, if poor he be; his tongue is bound to th' peace, as well as he. ("theognis," vss. 177, 178.) how comes it to pass then, said he, theognis that thou thyself being so poor pratest and gratest our ears in this manner? nor are we to omit, in our reading those hints which, from some other words or phrases bordering on those that offend us, may help to rectify our apprehensions. but as physicians use cantharides, believing that, though their bodies be deadly poison, yet their feet and wings are medicinal and are antidotes to the poison itself, so must we deal with poems. if any noun or verb near at hand may assist to the correction of any such saying, and preserve us from putting a bad construction upon it, we should take hold of it and employ it to assist a more favorable interpretation. as some do in reference to those verses of homer,- sorrows and tears most commonly are seen to be the gods' rewards to wretched men:- the gods, who have no cause themselves to grieve, for wretched man a web of sorrow weave. ("odyssey," iv. 197; "iliad," xxiv. 526.) for, they say, he says not of men simply, or of all men, that the gods weave for them the fatal web of a sorrowful life, but he affirms it only of foolish and imprudent men, whom, because their vices make them such, he therefore calls wretched and miserable. another way whereby those passages which are suspicious in poets maybe transferred to a better sense may be taken from the ordinary use of words, which a young man ought indeed to be more exercised in than in the use of strange and obscure terms. for it will be a point of philology which it will not be unprofitable to him to understand, that when he meets with [greek omitted] in a poet, that word means an evil death; for the macedonians use the word [greek omitted] to signify death. so the aeolians call victory gotten by patient endurance of hardships [greek omitted] and the dryopians call daemons [greek omitted]. but of all things it is most necessary, and no less profitable if we design to receive profit and not hurt from the poets, that we understand how they make use of the names of gods, as also of the terms of evil and good; and what they mean by soul and fate; and whether these words be always taken by them in one and the same sense or rather in various senses, as also many other words are. for so the word [greek omitted] sometimes signifies a material house, as, into the high-roofed house; and sometimes estate, as, my house is devoured. so the word [greek omitted] sometimes signifies life, and sometimes wealth. and [greek omitted] is sometimes taken for being uneasy and disquieted in mind, as in [greek omitted] ("iliad," v. 352.) and elsewhere for boasting and rejoicing, as in [greek omitted] ("odyssey," xviii. 333.) in like manner [greek omitted] signifies either to move, as in euripides when he saith, [greek omitted]-or to sit, as in sophocles when he writes thus, [greek omitted] (sophocles, "oedipus tyranus," 2.) it is elegant also when they fit to the present matter, as grammarians teach, the use of words which have another signification. as here:-[greek omitted] for here [greek omitted] signifies to praise (instead of [greek omitted]), and to praise is used for to refuse. so in conversation it is common with us to say, [greek omitted], it is well (i.e., no, i thank you), and to bid anything farewell [greek omitted]; by which forms of speech we refuse a thing which we do not want, or receive it not, but still with a civil compliment. so also some say that proserpina is called [greek omitted] in the notion of [greek omitted], to be deprecated, because death is by all men shunned. and the like distinction of words we ought to observe also in things more weighty and serious. to begin with the gods, we should teach our youth that poets, when they use the names of gods, sometimes mean properly the divine beings so called, but otherwhiles understand by those names certain powers of which the gods are the donors and authors, they having first led us into the use of them by their own practice. as when archilochus prays, king vulcan, hear thy suppliant, and grant that what thou'rt wont to give and i to want, it is plain that he means the god himself whom he invokes. but when elsewhere he bewails the drowning of his sister's husband, who had not obtained lawful burial, and says, had vulcan his fair limbs to ashes turned, i for his loss had with less passion mourned, he gives the name of vulcan to the fire and not to the deity. again, euripides, when he says, no; by the glorious stars i swear, and bloody mars and jupiter, (euripides, "phoenissae," 1006.) means the gods themselves who bare those names. but when sophocles saith, blind mars doth mortal men's affairs confound, as the swine's snout doth quite deface the ground, we are to understand the word mars to denote not the god so called, but war. and by the same word we are to understand also weapons made of hardened brass, in those verses of homer, these, are the gallant men whose noble blood keen mars did shed near swift scamander's flood. ("iliad," vii. 329.) wherefore, in conformity to the instances given, we must conceive and bear in mind that by the names of jupiter also sometimes they mean the god himself, sometimes fortune, and oftentimes also fate. for when they say,- great jupiter, who from the lofty hill of ida govern'st all the world at will; ("iliad," iii. 276.) that wrath which hurled to pluto's gloomy realm the souls of mighty chiefs:- such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of jove; (ibid. i. 3 and 5.) for who (but who himself too fondly loves) dares lay his wisdom in the scale with jove's?-they understand jupiter himself. but when they ascribe the event of all things done to jupiter as the cause, saying of him,- many brave souls to hell achilles sent, and jove's design accomplished in th' event,-they mean by jove no more but fate. for the poet doth not conceive that god contrives mischief against mankind, but he soundly declares the mere necessity of the things themselves, to wit, that prosperity and victory are destined by fate to cities and armies and commanders who govern themselves with sobriety, but if they give way to passions and commit errors, thereby dividing and crumbling themselves into factions, as those of whom the poet speaks did, they do unhandsome actions, and thereby create great disturbances, such as are attended with sad consequences. for to all unadvised acts, in fine, the fates unhappy issues do assign. (from euripides.) but when hesiod brings in prometheus thus counselling his brother epimetheus, brother, if jove to thee a present make, take heed that from his hands thou nothing take, (hesiod, "works and days," 86.) he useth the name of jove to express fortune; for he calls the good things which come by her (such as riches, and marriages, and empires, and indeed all external things the enjoyment whereof is profitable to only them who know how to use them well) the gifts of jove. and therefore he adviseth epimetheus (an ill man, and a fool withal) to stand in fear of and to guard himself from prosperity, as that which would be hurtful and destructive to him. again, where he saith, reproach thou not a man for being poor; his poverty's god's gift, as is thy store, (hesiod "works and days," 717.) he calls that which befalls men by fortune god's gift, and intimates that it is an unworthy thing to reproach any man for that poverty which he falls into by fortune, whereas poverty is then only a matter of disgrace and reproach when it is attendant on sloth and idleness, or wantonness and prodigality. for, before the name of fortune was used, they knew there was a powerful cause, which moved irregularly and unlimitedly and with such a force that no human reason could avoid it; and this cause they called by the names of gods. so we are wont to call divers things and qualities and discourses, and even men themselves, divine. and thus may we rectify many such sayings concerning jupiter as would otherwise seem very absurd. as these, for instance:- before jove's door two fatal hogsheads, filled with human fortunes, good and bad luck yield.- of violated oaths jove took no care, but spitefully both parties crushed by war:- to greeks and trojans both this was the rise of mischief, suitable to jove's device. ("iliad," xxiv. 527; vii. 69; "odyssey," viii. 81.) these passages we are to interpret as spoken concerning fortune or fate, of the casuality of both which no account can be given by us, nor do their effects fall under our power. but where anything is said of jupiter that is suitable, rational, and probable, there we are to conceive that the names of that god is used properly. as in these instances:- through others' ranks he conquering did range, but shunned with ajax any blows t' exchange; but jove's displeasure on him he had brought, had he with one so much his better fought. ("iliad," xi. 540.) for though great matters are jove's special care, small things t' inferior daemons trusted are. and other words there are which the poets remove and translate from their proper sense by accommodation to various things, which deserve also our serious notice. such a one, for instance, is [greek omitted], virtue. for because virtue does not only render men prudent, just, and good, both in their words and deeds, but also oftentimes purchaseth to them honor and power, therefore they call likewise these by that name. so we are wont to call both the olive-tree and the fruit [greek omitted], and the oak-tree and its acorn [greek omitted] communicating the name of the one to the other. therefore, when our young man reads in the poets such passages as these,- this law th' immortal gods to us have set, that none arrive at virtue but by sweat; (hesiod, "works and days," 289.) the adverse troops then did the grecians stout by their mere virtue profligate and rout; ("iliad," xi. 90.) if now the fates determined have our death, to virtue we'll consign our parting breath;-let him presently conceive that these things are spoken of that most excellent and divine habit in us which we understand to be no other than right reason, or the highest attainment of the reasonable nature, and most agreeable to the constitution thereof. and again, when he reads this, of virtue jupiter to one gives more, and lessens, when he lifts, another's store; and this, virtue and honor upon wealth attend; (ibid. xx. 242; hesiod "works and days," 313.) let him not sit down in an astonishing admiration of rich men, as if they were enabled by their wealth to purchase virtue, nor let him imagine that it is in the power of fortune to increase or lessen his own wisdom; but let him conceive that the poet by virtue meant either glory or power or prosperity or something of like import. for poets use the same ambiguity also in the word [greek omitted], evil, which sometimes in them properly signifies a wicked and malicious disposition of mind, as in that of hesiod, evil is soon acquired; for everywhere there's plenty on't and t'all men's dwellings near; (hesiod, "works and days," 287.) and sometimes some evil accident or misfortune, as when homer says, sore evils, when they haunt us in our prime, hasten old age on us before our time. ("odyessy," xix. 360.) so also in the word [greek omitted], he would be sorely deceived who should imagine that, wheresoever he meets with it in poets, it means (as it does in philosophy) a perfect habitual enjoyment of all good things or the leading a life every way agreeable to nature, and that they do not withal by the abuse of such words call rich men happy or blessed, and power or glory felicity. for, though homer rightly useth terms of that nature in this passage,- though of such great estates i am possest, yet with true inward joy i am not blest; (ibid. iv. 93.) and menander in this,- so great's th' estate i am endowed withal: all say i'm rich, but none me happy call;-yet euripides discourseth more confusedly and perplexedly when he writes after this manner,- i do not want a happy life that is tedious; and, man, why praisest thou th' unjust beatitude of tyranny? (euripides, "medea," 598; "phoenissae," 549.) except, as i said, we allow him the use of these words in a metaphorical and abusive meaning. but enough hath been spoken of these matters. nevertheless, this principle is not once only but often to be inculcated and pressed on young men, that poetry when it undertakes a fictitious argument by way of imitation, though it make use of such ornament and illustration as suit the actions and manners treated of, yet disclaims not all likelihood of truth, seeing the force of imitation, in order to the persuading of men, lies in probability. wherefore such imitation as does not altogether shake hands with truth carries along with it certain signs of virtue and vice mixed together in the actions which it doth represent. and of this nature is homer's poetry, which totally bids adieu to stoicism, the principles whereof will not admit any vice to come near where virtue is, nor virtue to have anything to do where any vice lodgeth, but affirms that he that is not a wise man can do nothing well, and he that is so can do nothing amiss. thus they determine in the schools. but in human actions and the affairs of common life the judgment of euripides is verified, that virtue and vice ne'er separately exist, but in the same acts with each other twist. (from the "aeolus" of euripides.) next, it is to be observed that poetry, waiving the truth of things, does most labor to beautify its fictions with variety and multiplicity of contrivance. for variety bestows upon fable all that is pathetical, unusual, and surprising, and thereby makes it more taking and graceful; whereas what is void of variety is unsuitable to the nature of fable, and so raiseth no passions at all. upon which design of variety it is, that the poets never represent the same persons always victorious or prosperous or acting with the same constant tenor of virtue;--yea, even the gods themselves, when they engage in human actions, are not represented as free from passions and errors;--lest, for the want of some difficulties and cross passages, their poems should be destitute of that briskness which is requisite to move and astonish the minds of men. these things therefore so standing, we should, when we enter a young man into the study of the poets, endeavor to free his mind from that degree of esteem of the good and great personages in them described as may incline him to think them to be mirrors of wisdom and justice, the chief of princes, and the exemplary measures of all virtue and goodness. for he will receive much prejudice, if he shall approve and admire all that comes from such persons as great, if he dislike nothing in them himself, nor will endure to hear others blame them, though for such words and actions as the following passages import:- oh! would to all the immortal powers above, apollo, pallas, and almighty jove! that not one trojan might be left alive, and not a greek of all the race survive. might only we the vast destruction shun, and only we destroy the accursed town! her breast all gore, with lamentable cries, the bleeding innocent cassandra dies, murdered by clytemnestra's faithless hand: lie with thy father's whore, my mother said, that she th' old man may loathe; and i obeyed: of all the gods, o father jove, there's none thus given to mischief but thyself alone. ("iliad," xvi. 97; "odyssey," xi. 421; "iliad," ix, 452; ibid. iii, 365.) our young man is to be taught not to commend such things as these, no, nor to show the nimbleness of his wit or subtlety in maintaining argument by finding out plausible colors and pretences to varnish over a bad matter. but we should teach him rather to judge that poetry is an imitation of the manners and lives of such men as are not perfectly pure and unblameable, but such as are tinctured with passions, misled by false opinions, and muffled with ignorance; though oftentimes they may, by the help of a good natural temper, change them for better qualities. for the young man's mind, being thus prepared and disposed, will receive no damage by such passages when he meets with them in poems, but will on the one side be elevated with rapture at those things which are well said or done, and on the other, will not entertain but dislike those which are of a contrary character. but he that admires and is transported with everything, as having his judgment enslaved by the esteem he hath for the names of heroes, will be unawares wheedled into many evil things, and be guilty of the same folly with those who imitate the crookedness of plato or the stammering of aristotle. neither must he carry himself timorously herein, nor, like a superstitious person in a temple, tremblingly adore all he meets with; but use himself to such confidence as may enable him openly to pronounce, this was ill or incongruously said, and, that was bravely and gallantly spoken. for example, achilles in homer, being offended at the spinning out that war by delays, wherein he was desirous by feats of arms to purchase to himself glory, calls the soldiers together when there was an epidemical disease among them. but having himself some smattering skill in physic, and perceiving after the ninth day, which useth to be decretory in such cases, that the disease was no usual one nor proceeding from ordinary causes, when he stands up to speak, he waives applying himself to the soldiers, and addresseth himself as a councillor to the general, thus:- why leave we not the fatal trojan shore, and measure back the seas we cross'd before? (for this and the four following quotations, see "iliad," i. 59, 90, 220, 349; ix, 458.) and he spake well, and with due moderation and decorum. but when the soothsayer chalcas had told him that he feared the wrath of the most potent among the grecians, after an oath that while he lived no man should lay violent hands on him, he adds, but not with like wisdom and moderation, not e'en the chief by whom our hosts are led, the king of kings, shall touch that sacred head; in which speech he declares his low opinion or rather his contempt of his chief commander. and then, being farther provoked, he drew his weapon with a design to kill him, which attempt was neither good nor expedient. and therefore by and by he repented his rashness,- he said, observant of the blue-eyed maid; then in the sheath returned the shining blade; wherein again he did rightly and worthily, in that, though he could not altogether quell his passion, yet he restrained and reduced it under the command of reason, before it brake forth into such an irreparable act of mischief. again, even agamemnon himself talks in that assembly ridiculously, but carries himself more gravely and more like a prince in the matter of chryseis. for whereas achilles, when his briseis was taken away from him, in sullenness withdraws from all his friends, and in his tent his time lamenting spends; agamemnon himself hands into the ship, delivers to her friends, and so sends from him, the woman concerning whom a little before he declared that he loved her better than his wife; and in that action did nothing unbecoming or savoring of fond affection. also phoenix, when his father bitterly cursed him for having to do with one that was his own harlot, says, him in my rage i purposed to have killed, but that my hand some god in kindness held; and minded me that, greeks would taunting say, lo, here's the man that did his father slay. it is true that aristarchus was afraid to permit these verses to stand in the poet, and therefore censured them to be expunged. but they were inserted by homer very aptly to the occasion of phoenix's instructing achilles what a pernicious thing anger is, and what foul acts men do by its instigation, while they are capable neither of making use of their own reason nor of hearing the counsel of others. to which end he also introduceth meleager at first highly offended with his citizens, and afterwards pacified; justly therein reprehending disordered passions, and praising it as a good and profitable thing not to yield to them, but to resist and overcome them, and to repent when one hath been overcome by them. now in these instances the difference is manifest. but where a like clear judgment cannot be passed, there we are to settle the young man's mind thus, by way of distinction. if nausicaa, having cast her eyes upon ulysses, a stranger, and feeling the same passion for him as calypso had before, did (as one that was ripe for a husband) out of wantonness talk with her maidens at this foolish rate,- o heaven! in my connubial hour decree this man my spouse, or such a spouse as he! ("odyssey," vi. 254.) she is blameworthy for her impudence and incontinence. but if, perceiving the man's breeding by his discourse, and admiring the prudence of his addresses, she rather wisheth to have such a one for a husband than a merchant or a dancing gallant of her fellow-citizens, she is to be commended. and when ulysses is represented as pleased with penelope's jocular conversation with her wooers, and at their presenting her with rich garments and other ornaments, because she cunningly the fools cajoled, and bartered light words for their heavy gold; ("odyssey," xvii, 282.) if that joy were occasioned by greediness and covetousness, he discovers himself to be a more sordid prostituter of his own life than poliager is wont to be represented on the stage to have been, of whom it is said,- happy man he, whose wife, like capricorn, stores him with riches from a golden horn! but if through foresight he thought thereby to get them the more within his power, as being lulled asleep in security for the future by the hopes she gave them at present, this rejoicing, joined with confidence in his wife, was rational. again, when he is brought in numbering the goods which the phaeacians had set on shore together with himself and departed; if indeed, being himself left in such a solitude, so ignorant where he was, and having no security there for his own person, he is yet solicitous for his goods, lest the sly phaeacians, when they stole to sea, had stolen some part of what they brought away; (ibid. xiii. 216.) the covetousness of the man deserved in truth to be pitied, or rather abhorred. but if, as some say in his defence, being doubtful whether or no the place where he was landed were ithaca, he made use of the just tale of his goods to infer thence the honesty of the phaeacians,--because it was not likely they would expose him in a strange place and leave him there with his goods by him untouched, so as to get nothing by their dishonesty,--then he makes use of a very fit test for this purpose, and deserves commendation for his wisdom in that action. some also there are who condemn that passage of the putting him on shore when he was asleep, if it really so happened, and they tell us that the people of tuscany have still a traditional story among them concerning ulysses, that he was naturally sleepy, and therefore a man whom many people could not freely converse with. but if his sleep was but shammed, and he made use of this pretence only of a natural infirmity, by counterfeiting a nap, to hide the strait he was in at the time in his thoughts, betwixt the shame of sending away the phaeacians without giving them a friendly collation and hospitable gifts, and the fear he had of being discovered to his enemies by the treating such a company of men together, they then approve it. now, by showing young men these things, we shall preserve them from being carried away to any corruption in their manners, and dispose them to the election and imitation of those that are good, as being before instructed readily to disapprove those and commend these. but this ought with the most care to be done in the reading of tragedies wherein probable and subtle speeches are made use of in the most foul and wicked actions. for that is not always true which sophocles saith, that from evil acts good words can never come. for even he himself is wont to apply pleasant reasonings and plausible arguments to those manners and actions which are wicked or unbecoming. and in another of his fellow-tragedians, we may see even phaedra herself represented as justifying her unlawful affection for hippolytus by accusing theseus of ill-carriage towards her. and in his troades, he allows helen the same liberty of speech against hecuba, whom she judgeth to be more worthy of punishment than herself for her adultery, because she was the mother of paris that tempted her thereto. a young man therefore must not be accustomed to think anything of that nature handsomely or wittily spoken, nor to be pleased with such colorable inventions; but rather more to abhor such words as tend to the defence of wanton acts than the very acts themselves. and lastly, it will be useful likewise to inquire into the cause why each thing is said. for so cato, when he was a boy, though he was wont to be very observant of all his master's commands, yet withal used to ask the cause or reason why he so commanded. but poets are not to be obeyed as pedagogues and promulgators of laws are, except they have reason to back what they say. and that they will not want, when they speak well; and if they speak ill, what they say will appear vain and frivolous. but nowadays most young men very briskly demand the reason of such trivial speeches as these, and inquire in what sense they are spoken:- it bodes ill, when vessels you set up, to put the ladle on the mixing-cup. who from his chariot to another's leaps, seldom his seat without a combat keeps. (hesiod "works and days," 744; "iliad," iv. 306.) but to those of greater moment they give credence without examination, as to those that follow:- the boldest men are daunted oftentimes, when they're reproached with their parents' crimes: (euripides, "hippolytus," 424.) when any man is crushed by adverse fate, his spirit should be low as his estate. and yet such speeches relate to manners, and disquiet men's lives by begetting in them evil opinions and unworthy sentiments, except they have learned to return answer to each of them thus: "wherefore is it necessary that a man who is crushed by adverse fate should have a dejected spirit? yea, why rather should he not struggle against fortune, and raise himself above the pressures of his low circumstances? why, if i myself be a good and wise son of an evil and foolish father, does it not rather become me to bear myself confidently upon the account of my own virtue, than to be dejected and dispirited because of my father's defects?" for he that can encounter such speeches and oppose them after this manner, not yielding himself up to be overset with the blast of every saying, but approving that speech of heraclitus, that whate'er is said, though void of sense and wit, the size of a fool's intellect doth fit, will reject many such things as falsely and idly spoken. these things therefore may be of use to preserve us from the hurt we might get by the study of poems. now, as on a vine the fruit oftentimes lies concealed and hidden under its large leaves and luxuriant branches, so in the poet's phrases and fictions that encompass them there are also many profitable and useful things concealed from the view of young men. this, however, ought not to be suffered; nor should we be led away from things themselves thus, but rather adhere to such of them as tend to the promoting of virtue and the well forming of our manners. it will not be altogether useless, therefore, to treat briefly in the next place of passages of that nature. wherein i intend to touch only at some particulars, leaving all longer discussion, and the trimming up and furnishing them with a multitude of instances, to those who write more for display and ostentation. first, therefore, let our young man be taught to understand good and bad manners and persons, and from thence apply his mind to the words and deeds which the poet decently assigns to either of them. for example, achilles, though in some wrath, speaks to agamemnon thus decently:- nor, when we take a trojan town, can i with thee in spoils and splendid prizes vie; (for this and the five following quotations, see "iliad," i. 163; ii. 226; i. 128; ii. 231; iv. 402 and 404.) whereas thersites to the same person speaks reproachfully in this manner:- 'tis thine whate'er the warrior's breast inflames, the golden spoil, thine the lovely dames. with all the wealth our wars and blood bestow, thy tents are crowded and thy chests o'erflow. again, achilles thus:- whene'er, by jove's decree, our conquering powers shall humble to the dust troy's lofty towers; but thersites thus:- whom i or some greek else as captive bring. again, diomedes, when agamemnon taking a view of the army spoke reproachfully to him, to his hard words forbore to make reply, for the respect he bare to majesty; whereas sthenelus, a man of small note, replies on him thus:- sir, when you know the truth, what need to lie? for with our fathers we for valor vie. now the observation of such difference will teach the young man the decency of a modest and moderate temper, and the unbecoming nauseousness of the contrary vices of boasting and cracking of a man's own worth. and it is worth while also to take notice of the demeanor of agamemnon in the same place. for he passeth by sthenelus unspoken to; but perceiving ulysses to be offended, he neglects not him, but applies himself to answer him:- struck with his generous wrath, the king replies. ("iliad," iv. 357. for the four following, see "iliad," ix. 34 and 70; iv. 431; x. 325.) for to have apologized to every one had been too servile and misbecoming the dignity of his person; whereas equally to have neglected every one had been an act of insolence and imprudence. and very handsome it is that diomedes, though in the heat of the battle he answers the king only with silence, yet after the battle was over useth more liberty towards him, speaking thus:- you called me coward, sir, before the greeks. it is expedient also to take notice of the different carriage of a wise man and of a soothsayer popularly courting the multitude. for chalcas very unseasonably makes no scruple to traduce the king before the people, as having been the cause of the pestilence that was befallen them. but nestor, intending to bring in a discourse concerning the reconciling achilles to him, that he might not seem to charge agamemnon before the multitude with the miscarriage his passion had occasioned, only adviseth him thus:- but thou, o king, to council call the old.... wise weighty counsels aid a state distressed, and such a monarch as can choose the best; which done, accordingly after supper he sends his ambassadors. now this speech of nestor tended to the rectifying of what he had before done amiss; but that of chalcas, only to accuse and disparage him. there is likewise consideration to be had of the different manners of nations, such as these. the trojans enter into battle with loud outcries and great fierceness; but in the army of the greeks, sedate and silent move the numerous bands; no sound, no whisper, but the chief's commands; those only heard, with awe the rest obey. for when soldiers are about to engage an enemy, the awe they stand in of their officers is an argument both of courage and obedience. for which purpose plato teacheth us that we ought to inure ourselves to fear, blame and disgrace more than labor and danger. and cato was wont to say that he liked men that were apt to blush better than those that looked pale. moreover, there is a particular character to be noted of the men who undertake for any action. for dolon thus promiseth:- i'll pass through all their host in a disguise to their flag-ship, where she at anchor lies. but diomedes promiseth nothing, but only tells them he shall fear the less if they send a companion with him; whereby is intimated, that discreet foresight is grecian and civil, but rash confidence is barbarous and evil; and the former is therefore to be imitated, and the latter to be avoided. it is a matter too of no unprofitable consideration, how the minds of the trojans and of hector too were affected when he and ajax were about to engage in a single combat. for aeschylus, when, upon one of the fighters at fisticuffs in the isthmian games receiving a blow on the face, there was made a great outcry among the people, said: "what a thing is practice! see how the lookers-on only cry out, but the man that received the stroke is silent." but when the poet tells us, that the greeks rejoiced when they saw ajax in his glistering armor, but the trojans' knees for very fear did quake, and even hector's heart began to ache; ("iliad," vii. 215. for the three following, see "iliad," ii. 220; v. 26 and 231.) who is there that wonders not at this difference,--when the heart of him that was to run the risk of the combat only beats inwardly, as if he were to undertake a mere wrestling or running match, but the very bodies of the spectators tremble and shake, out of the kindness and fear which they had for their king? in the same poet also we may observe the difference betwixt the humor of a coward and a valiant man. for thersites against achilles a great malice had, and wise ulysses he did hate as bad; but ajax is always represented as friendly to achilles; and particularly he speaks thus to hector concerning him:- hector i approach my arm, and singly know what strength thou hast, and what the grecian foe. achilles shuns the fight; yet some there are not void of soul, and not unskill'd in war: wherein he insinuates the high commendation of that valiant man. and in what follows, he speaks like handsome things of his fellow-soldiers in general, thus:- whole troops of heroes greece has yet to boast, and sends thee one, a sample of her host; wherein he doth not boast himself to be the only or the best champion, but one of those, among many others, who were fit to undertake that combat. what hath been said is sufficient upon the point of dissimilitudes; except we think fit to add this, that many of the trojans came into the enemy's power alive, but none of the grecians; and that many trojans supplicated to their enemies,--as (for instance) adrastus, the sons of antimachus, lycaon,--and even hector himself entreats achilles for a sepulture; but not one of these doth so, as judging it barbarous to supplicate to a foe in the field, and more greek-like either to conquer or die. but as, in the same plant, the bee feeds on the flower, the goat on the bud, the hog on the root, and other living creatures on the seed and the fruit; so in reading of poems, one man singleth out the historical part, another dwells upon the elegancy and fit disposal of words, as aristophanes says of euripides,- his gallant language runs so smooth and round, that i am ravisht with th' harmonious sound; (see "aristophanes," frag. 397.) but others, to whom this part of my discourse is directed, mind only such things as are useful to the bettering of manners. and such we are to put in mind that it is an absurd thing, that those who delight in fables should not let anything slip them of the vain and extravagant stories they find in poets, and that those who affect language should pass over nothing that is elegantly and floridly expressed; and that only the lovers of honor and virtue, who apply themselves to the study of poems not for delight but for instruction's sake, should slightly and negligently observe what is spoken in them relating to valor, temperance, or justice. of this nature is the following:- and stand we deedless, o eternal shame! till hector's arm involve the ships in flame? haste, let us join, and combat side by side. ("iliad," xi. 313. for the four following see "odyssey," iii. 52; "iliad," xxiv. 560 and 584; "odyssey," xvi. 274.) for to see a man of the greatest wisdom in danger of being totally cut off with all those that take part with him, and yet affected less with fear of death than of shame and dishonor, must needs excite in a young man a passionate affection for virtue. and this, joyed was the goddess, for she much did prize a man that was alike both just and wise, teacheth us to infer that the deity delights not in a rich or a proper or a strong man, but in one that is furnished with wisdom and justice. again, when the same goddess (minerva) saith that the reason why she did not desert or neglect ulysses was that he was gentle, of ready wit, of prudent mind, she therein tells us that, of all things pertaining to us, nothing is dear to the gods and godlike but our virtue, seeing like naturally delights in like. and seeing, moreover, that it both seemeth and really is a great thing to be able to moderate a man's anger, but a greater by far to guard a man's self beforehand by prudence, that he fall not into it nor be surprised by it, therefore also such passages as tend that way are not slightly to be represented to the readers; for example, that achilles himself--who was a man of no great forbearance, nor inclined to such meekness--yet admonishes priam to be calm and not to provoke him, thus, move me no more (achilles thus replies, while kindling anger sparkled in his eyes), nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend: to yield thy hector i myself intend: cease; lest, neglectful of high jove's command, i show thee, king, thou tread'st on hostile land; and that he himself first washeth and decently covereth the body of hector and then puts it into a chariot, to prevent his father's seeing it so unworthily mangled as it was,- lest the unhappy sire, provoked to passion, once more rouse to ire the stern pelides; and nor sacred age, nor jove's command, should check the rising rage. for it is a piece of admirable prudence for a man so prone to anger, as being by nature hasty and furious, to understand himself so well as to set a guard upon his own inclinations, and by avoiding provocations to keep his passion at due distance by the use of reason, lest he should be unawares surprised by it. and after the same manner must the man that is apt to be drunken forearm himself against that vice; and he that is given to wantonness, against lust, as agesilaus refused to receive a kiss from a beautiful person addressing to him, and cyrus would not so much as endure to see panthea. whereas, on the contrary, those that are not virtuously bred are wont to gather fuel to inflame their passions, and voluntarily to abandon themselves to those temptations to which of themselves they are endangered. but ulysses does not only restrain his own anger, but (perceiving by the discourse of his son telemachus, that through indignation conceived against such evil men he was greatly provoked) he blunts his passion too beforehand, and composeth him to calmness and patience, thus:- there, if base scorn insult my reverend age, bear it, my son! repress thy rising rage. if outraged, cease that outrage to repel; bear it, my son! howe'er thy heart rebel. for as men are not wont to put bridles on their horses when they are running in full speed, but bring them bridled beforehand to the race; so do they use to preoccupy and predispose the minds of those persons with rational considerations to enable them to encounter passion, whom they perceive to be too mettlesome and unmanageable upon the sight of provoking objects. furthermore, the young man is not altogether to neglect names themselves when he meets with them; though he is not obliged to give much heed to such idle descants as those of cleanthes, who, while he professeth himself an interpreter, plays the trifler, as in these passages of homer: [greek omitted], ("iliad," iii. 320; xvi. 233.) for he will needs read the two of these words joined into one, and make them [greek omitted] for that the air evaporated from the earth by exhalation [greek omitted] is so called. yea, and chrysippus too, though he does not so trifle, yet is very jejune, while he hunts after improbable etymologies. as when he will need force the words [greek omitted] to import jupiter's excellent faculty in speaking and powerfulness to persuade thereby. but such things as these are fitter to be left to the examination of grammarians and we are rather to insist upon such passages as are both profitable and persuasive. such, for instance, as these;- my early youth was bred to martial pains, my soul impels me to the embattled plains! how skill'd he was in each obliging art; the mildest manners, and the gentlest heart. (ibid. vi. 444; xvii. 671.) for while the author tells us that fortitude may be taught, and that an obliging and graceful way of conversing with others is to be gotten by art and the use of reason, he exhorts us not to neglect the improvement of ourselves, but by observing our teachers' instructions to learn a becoming carriage, as knowing that clownishness and cowardice argue ill-breeding and ignorance. and very suitable to what hath been said is that which is said of jupiter and neptune:- gods of one source, of one ethereal race, alike divine, and heaven their native place; but jove the greater; first born of the skies, and more than men or gods supremely wise. ("iliad," xiii. 354.) for the poet therein pronounceth wisdom to be the most divine and royal quality of all; as placing therein the greatest excellency of jupiter himself, and judging all virtues else to be necessarily consequent thereunto. we are also to accustom a young man attentively to hear such things as these:- urge him with truth to frame his fair replies: and sure he will, for wisdom never lies: the praise of wisdom, in thy youth obtain'd, an act so rash, antilochus, has stain'd: say, is it just, my friend, that hector's ear from such a warrior such a speech should hear? i deemed thee once the wisest of thy kind, but ill this insult suits a prudent mind. ("odyssey," iii. 20; "iliad," xxiii. 570; xvii. 170.) these speeches teach us that it is beneath wise men to lie or to deal otherwise than fairly, even in games, or to blame other men without just cause. and when the poet attributes pindarus's violation of the truce to his folly, he withal declares his judgment that a wise man will not be guilty of an unjust action. the like may we also infer concerning continence, taking our ground for it from these passages:- for him antaea burn'd with lawless flame, and strove to tempt him from the paths of fame: in vain she tempted the relentless youth, endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth: at first, with worthy shame and decent pride, the royal dame, his lawless suit denied! for virtue's image yet possessed her mind: ("iliad," vi. 160; "odyssey," iii. 265.) in which speeches the poet assigns wisdom to be the cause of continence. and when in exhortations made to encourage soldiers to fight, he speaks in this manner:- what mean you, lycians? stand! o stand, for shame! yet each reflect who prizes fame or breath, on endless infamy, on instant death; for, lo! the fated time, the appointed shore; hark! the gates burst, the brazen barriers roar! ("iliad," xvi. 422; xiii. 121.) he seems to intimate that prudent men are valiant men; because they fear the shame of base actions, and can trample on pleasures and stand their ground in the greatest hazards. whence timotheus, in the play called persae, takes occasion handsomely to exhort the grecians thus:- brave soldiers of just shame in awe should stand; for the blushing face oft helps the fighting hand. and aeschylus also makes it a point of wisdom not to be blown up with pride when a man is honored, nor to be moved or elevated with the acclamations of a multitude, writing thus of amphiaraus:- his shield no emblem bears; his generous soul wishes to be, not to appear, the best; while the deep furrows of his noble mind harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear. (see note in the same passage of aeschylus (sept. 591), i. 210. (g).) for it is the part of a wise man to value himself upon the consciousness of his own true worth and excellency. whereas, therefore, all inward perfections are reducible to wisdom, it appears that all sorts of virtue and learning are included in it again, boys may be instructed, by reading the poets as they ought, to draw even from those passages that are most suspected as wicked and absurd something that is useful and profitable; as the bee is taught by nature to gather the sweetest and most pleasant honey from the harshest flowers and sharpest thorns. it does indeed at the first blush cast a shrewd suspicion on agmemnon of taking a bribe, when homer tells us that he discharged that rich man from the wars who presented him with his fleet mare aethe:- whom rich echepolus, more rich than brave, to 'scape the wars, to agamemnon gave (aethe her name), at home to end his days; base wealth preferring to eternal praise. ("iliad," xxiii. 297.) yet, as saith aristotle, it was well done of him to prefer a good beast before such a man. for, the truth is, a dog or ass is of more value than a timorous and cowardly man that wallows in wealth and luxury. again, thetis seems to do indecently, when she exhorts her son to follow his pleasures and minds him of companying with women. but even here, on the other side, the continency of achilles is worthy to be considered; who, though he dearly loved briseis,--newly returned to him too,--yet, when he knew his life to be near its end, does not hasten to the fruition of pleasures, nor, when he mourns for his friend patroclus, does he (as most men are wont) shut himself up from all business and neglect his duty, but only bars himself from recreations for his sorrow's sake, while yet he gives himself up to action and military employments. and archilochus is not praiseworthy either, who, in the midst of his mourning for his sister's husband drowned in the sea, contrives to dispel his grief by drinking and merriment. and yet he gives this plausible reason to justify that practice of his, to drink and dance, rather than mourn, i choose; nor wrong i him, whom mourning can't reduce. for, if he judged himself to do nothing amiss when he followed sports and banquets, sure, we shall not do worse, if in whatever circumstances we follow the study of philosophy, or manage public affairs, or go to the market or to the academy, or follow our husbandry. wherefore those corrections also are not to be rejected which cleanthes and antisthenes have made use of. for antisthenes, seeing the athenians all in a tumult in the theatre, and justly, upon the pronunciation of this verse,- except what men think wrong, there's nothing ill, (from the "aeolus" of euripides, frag. 19.) presently subjoined this corrective, what's wrong is so,--believe men what they will. and cleanthes, hearing this passage concerning wealth:- great is th' advantage that great wealth attends, for oft with it we purchase health and friends, (euripides, "electra," 428.) presently altered it thus: great disadvantage oft attends on wealth; we purchase whores with't and destroy our health. and zeno corrected that of sophocles, the man that in a tyrant's palace dwells his liberty for's entertainment sells, after this manner:- no: if he came in free, he cannot lose his liberty, though in a tyrant's house; meaning by a free man one that is undaunted and magnanimous, and one of a spirit too great to stoop beneath itself. and why may not we also, by some such acclamations as those, call off young men to the better side, by using some things spoken by poets after the same manner? for example, it is said, 'tis all that in this life one can require, to hit the mark he aims at in desire. to which we may reply thus:- 'tis false; except one level his desire at what's expedient, and no more require. for it is an unhappy thing and not to be wished, for a man to obtain and be master of what he desires if it be inexpedient. again this saying, thou, agamemnon, must thyself prepare of joy and grief by turns to take thy share, thy father, atreus, sure, ne'er thee begat, to be an unchanged favorite of fate: (euripides, "iphigenia at aulus," 29.) we may thus invert:- thy father, atreus, never thee begat, to be an unchanged favorite of fate: therefore, if moderate thy fortunes are, thou shouldst rejoice always, and grief forbear. again it is said, alas! this ill comes from the powers divine that oft we see what's good, yet it decline. (from the "chrysippus" of euripides, frag. 838.) yea, rather, say we, it is a brutish and irrational and wretched fault of ours, that when we understand better things, we are carried away to the pursuit of those which are worse, through our intemperance and effeminacy. again, one says, for not the teacher's speech but practice moves. (from menander.) yea, rather, say we, both the speech and practice,--or the practice by the means of speech,--as the horse is managed with the bridle, and the ship with the helm. for virtue hath no instrument so suitable and agreeable to human nature to work on men withal, as that of rational discourse. again, we meet with this character of some person:- a. is he more inclined to male or female love? b. he bends both ways, where beauty moves. but it had been better said thus:- he's flexible to both, where virtue moves. for it is no commendation of a man's dexterity to be tossed up and down as pleasure and beauty move him, but an argument rather of a weak and unstable disposition. once more, this speech, religion damps the courage of our minds, and ev'n wise men to cowardice inclines, is by no means to be allowed; but rather the contrary, religion truly fortifies men's minds, and a wise man to valiant acts inclines, and gives not occasion of fear to any but weak and foolish persons and such as are ungrateful to the deity, who are apt to look on that divine power and principle which is the cause of all good with suspicion and jealousy, as being hurtful unto them. and so much for that which i call correction of poets' sayings. there is yet another way of improving poems, taught us well by chrysippus; which is, by accommodation of any saying, to transfer that which is useful and serviceable in it to divers things of the same kind. for whereas hesiod saith, if but a cow miscarry, the common fame upon the next ill neighbor lays the blame; (hesiod, "work and days," 348.) the same may be applied to a man's dog or ass or any other beast of his which is liable to the like mischance. again, euripides saith, how can that man be called a slave, who slights ev'n death itself, which servile spirits frights? the like whereof may be said of hard labor or painful sickness. for as physicians, finding by experience the force of any medicine in the cure of some one disease, make use of it by accommodation, proportionably to every other disease of affinity thereto, so are we to deal with such speeches as are of a common import and apt to communicate their value to other things; we must not confine them to that one thing only to which they were at first adapted, but transfer them to all other of like nature, and accustom young men by many parallel instances to see the communicableness of them, and exercise the promptness of their wits in such applications so that when menander says, happy is he who wealth and wisdom hath, they may be able to judge that the same is fitly applicable to glory and authority and eloquence also. and the reproof which ulysses gives achilles, when he found him sitting in scyrus in the apartment of the young ladies, thou, who from noblest greeks deriv'st thy race, dost thou with spinning wool thy birth disgrace? may be as well given to the prodigal, to him that undertakes any dishonest way of living, yea, to the slothful and unlearned person, thus:- thou, who from noblest greeks deriv'st thy race, dost thou with fuddling thy great birth disgrace? or dost thou spend thy time in dicing, or quail-striking, (the word here used [greek omitted] denotes a game among the grecians, which suidas describes to be the setting of quails in a round compass or ring and striking at the heads of them; and he that in the ring struck one had liberty to strike at the rest in order, but he that missed was obliged to set up quails for others; and this they did by turns.) or deal in adulterate wares or griping usury, not minding anything that is great and worthy thy noble extraction? so when they read, for wealth, the god most served, i little care, since the worst men his favors often wear, (from the "aeolus," of euripides, frag. 20.) they may be able to infer, therefore, as little regard is to be had to glory and bodily beauty and princely robes and priestly garlands, all which also we see to be the enjoyments of very bad men. again, when they read this passage, a coward father propagates his vice, and gets a son heir to his cowardice, they may in truth apply the same to intemperance, to superstition, to envy, and all other diseases of men's minds. again, whereas it is handsomely said of homer, unhappy paris, fairest to behold! and hector, of noble form. ("iliad," iii. 39; xvii. 142.) for herein he shows that a man who hath no greater excellency than that of beauty to commend him deserves to have it mentioned with contempt and ignominy,--such expressions we should make use of in like cases to repress the insolence of such as bear themselves high upon the account of such things as are of no real value, and to teach young men to look upon such compellations as "o thou richest of men," and "o thou that excellest in feasting, in multitudes of attendants, in herds of cattle, yea, and in eloquent speaking itself," to be (as they are indeed) expressions that import reproach and infamy. for, in truth, a man that designs to excel ought to endeavor it in those things that are in themselves most excellent, and to become chief in the chiefest, and great in the greatest things. whereas glory that ariseth from things in themselves small and inconsiderable is inglorious and contemptible. to mind us whereof we shall never be at a loss for instances, if, in reading homer especially, we observe how he applieth the expressions that import praise or disgrace; wherein we have clear proof that he makes small account of the good things either of the body or fortune. and first of all, in meetings and salutations, men do not call others fair or rich or strong, but use such terms of commendation as these:- son of laertes, from great jove deriving thy pedigree, and skilled in wise contriving; hector, thou son of priam, whose advice with wisest jove's men count of equal price; achilles, son of peleus, whom all story shall mention as the grecians greatest glory; divine patroclus, for thy worth thou art, of all the friends i have, lodged next my heart. ("iliad," ii. 173; vii. 47; xix. 216; xi. 608.) and moreover, when they speak disgracefully of any person, they touch not at bodily defects, but direct all their reproaches to vicious actions; as for instance:- a dogged-looking, drunken beast thou art, and in thy bosom hast a deer's faint heart; ajax at brawling valiant still, whose tongue is used to speaking ill; a tongue so loose hung, and so vain withal, idomeneus, becomes thee not at all; ajax thy tongue doth oft offend; for of thy boasting there's no end. (ibid. i. 225; xxiii. 483 and 474-479; xiii. 824.) lastly, when ulysses reproacheth thersites, he objecteth not to him his lameness nor his baldness nor his hunched back, but the vicious quality of indiscreet babbling. on the other side, when juno means to express a dalliance or motherly fondness to her son vulcan, she courts him with an epithet taken from his halting, thus, rouse thee, my limping son! (ibid, xxi. 331.) in this instance, homer does (as it were) deride those who are ashamed of their lameness or blindness, as not thinking anything a disgrace that is not in itself disgraceful, nor any person liable to a reproach for that which is not imputable to himself but to fortune. these two great advantages may be made by those who frequently study poets;--the learning moderation, to keep them from unseasonable and foolish reproaching others with their misfortunes, when they themselves enjoy a constant current of prosperity; and magnanimity, that under variety of accidents they be not dejected nor disturbed, but meekly bear the being scoffed at, reproached, and drolled upon. especially, let them have that saying of philemon ready at hand in such cases:- that spirit's well in tune, whose sweet repose no railer's tongue can ever discompose. and yet, if one that so rails do himself merit reprehension, thou mayst take occasion to retort upon him his own vices and inordinate passions; as when adrastus in the tragedy is assaulted thus by alcmaeon, thy sister's one that did her husband kill, he returns him this answer, but thou thyself thy mother's blood did spill. for as they who scourge a man's garments do not touch the body, so those that turn other men's evil fortunes or mean births to matter of reproach do only with vanity and folly enough lash their external circumstances, but touch not their internal part, the soul, nor those things which truly need correction and reproof. moreover, as we have above taught you to abate and lessen the credit of evil and hurtful poems by setting in opposition to them the famous speeches and sentences of such worthy men as have managed public affairs, so will it be useful to us, where we find any things in them of civil and profitable import, to improve and strengthen them by testimonies and proofs taken from philosophers, withal giving these the credit of being the first inventors of them. for this is both just and profitable to be done, seeing by this means such sayings receive an additional strength and esteem, when it appears that what is spoken on the stage or sung to the harp or occurs in a scholar's lesson is agreeable to the doctrines of pythagoras and plato, and that the sentences of chile and bias tend to the same issue with those that are found in the authors which children read. therefore must we industriously show them that these poetical sentences, not these, o daughter, are thy proper cares, thee milder arts befit, and softer wars; sweet smiles are thine, and kind endearing charms; to mars and pallas leave the deeds of arms; jove's angry with thee, when thy unmanaged rage with those that overmatch thee doth engage; ("iliad," v. 248; xi. 543.) differ not in substance but bear plainly the same sense with that philosophical sentence, know thyself, and these fools, who by wrong seek to augment their store, and know not how much half than all is more; of counsel giv'n to mischievous intents, the man that gives it most of all repents; (hesiod, "works and days," 40 and 266.) are of near kin to what we find in the determination of plato, in his books entitled gorgias and concerning the commonwealth, to wit, that it is worse to do than to suffer injury, and that a man more endamageth himself when he hurts another, than he would be damnified if he were the sufferer. and that of aeschylus, cheer up, friend; sorrows, when they highest climb, what they exceed in measure want in time, we must inform them, is but the same famous sentence which is so much admired in epicurus, that great griefs are but short, and those that are of long continuance are but small. the former clause whereof is that which aeschylus here saith expressly, and the latter but the consequent of that. for if a great and intense sorrow do not last, then that which doth last is not great nor hard to be borne. and those words of thespis, seest not how jove,--because he cannot lie nor vaunt nor laugh at impious drollery, and pleasure's charms are things to him unknown,- among the gods wears the imperial crown? wherein differ they from what plato says, that the divine nature is remote from both joy and grief? and that saying of bacchylides, virtue alone doth lasting honor gain, but men of basest souls oft wealth attain; and those of euripides much of the same import, hence temperance in my esteem excels, because it constantly with good men dwells; however you may strive for honor and you may seem to have secured by wealth virtue, good men will place you among the miserable; do they not evidently confirm to us what the philosophers say of riches and other external good things, that without virtue they are fruitless and unprofitable enjoyments? now thus to accommodate and reconcile poetry to the doctrines of philosophy strips it of its fabulous and personated parts, and makes those things which it delivers usefully to acquire also the reputation of gravity; and over and above, it inclines the soul of a young man to receive the impressions of philosophical precepts. for he will hereby be enabled to come to them not altogether destitute of some sort of relish of them, not as to things that he has heard nothing of before, nor with an head confusedly full of the false notions which he hath sucked in from the daily tattle of his mother and nurse,--yea, sometimes too of his father and pedant,--who have been wont to speak of rich men as the happy men and mention them always with honor, and to express themselves concerning death and pain with horror, and to look on virtue without riches and glory as a thing of nought and not to be desired. whence it comes to pass, that when such youths first do hear things of a quite contrary nature from philosophers, they are surprised with a kind of amazement, trouble, and stupid astonishment, which makes them afraid to entertain or endure them, except they be dealt with as those who come out of very great darkness into the light of the bright sun, that is, be first accustomed for a while to behold those doctrines in fabulous authors, as in a kind of false light, which hath but a moderate brightness and is easy to be looked on and borne without disturbance to the weak sight. for having before heard or read from poets such things as these are,- mourn one's birth, as the entrance of all ills; but joy at death, as that which finishes misery; of worldly things a mortal needs but two; a drink of water and the gift of ceres: o tyranny, to barbarous nations dear! this in all human happiness is chief, to know as little as we can of grief; they are the less disturbed and offended when they hear from philosophers that no man ought to be overconcerned about death; that riches are limited to the necessities of nature; that the happiness of man's life doth not consist in the abundance of wealth or vastness of employments or height of authority and power, but in freedom from sorrow, in moderation of passions, and in such a temper of mind as measures all things by the use of nature. wherefore, upon all these accounts, as well as for all the reasons before mentioned, youth stands in need of good government to manage it in the reading of poetry, that being free from all prejudicate opinions, and rather instructed beforehand in conformity thereunto, it may with more calmness, friendliness, and familiarity pass from thence to the study of philosophy. end of fourteen-----------abstract of a comparison between aristophane and menander to speak in sum and in general, he prefers menander by far; and as to particulars, he adds what here ensues. aristophanes, he saith, is importune, theatric, and sordid in his expression; but menander not so at all. for the rude and vulgar person is taken with the things the former speaketh; but the well-bred man will be quite out of humor with them. i mean, his opposed terms, his words of one cadence, and his derivatives. for the one makes use of these with due observance and but seldom, and bestows care upon them; but the other frequently, unseasonably, and frigidly. "for he is much commended," said he, "for ducking the chamberlains, they being indeed not chamberlains [greek omitted] but witches."[greek omitted]. and again,--"this rascal breathes out nothing but roguery and sycophanty"; and "smite him well in his belly with the entrails and the guts"; and, "by laughing i shall get to laughington [greek omitted]"; and, "thou poor sharded ostracized pot, what shall i do with thee?" and, "to you women surely he is a mad plague, for he was brought up among these mad worts";--and, "look here, how the moths have eaten away my crest"; and, "bring me hither the gorgon-backed circle of my shield"; "give me the round-backed circle of a cheese-cake";--and much more of the same kind. (see aristophanes, "knights," 437, 455; "thesmophoriazusae," 455; acharnians," 1109, 1124.) there is then in the structure of his words something tragic and something comic, something blustering and something low, an obscurity, a vulgarness, a turgidness, and a strutting, with a nauseous prattling and fooling. and as his style has so great varieties and dissonances in it, so neither doth he give to his persons what is fitting and proper to each,--as state (for instance) to a prince, force to an orator, innocence to a woman, meanness of language to a poor man, and sauciness to a tradesman,--but he deals out to every person, as it were by lot, such words as come next to his hand, and you would scarce discern whether he be a son a father, a peasant, a god, an old woman, or a hero that is talking. but now menander's phrase is so well turned and contempered with itself, and so everywhere conspiring, that, while it traverses many passions and humors and is accommodated to all sorts of persons, it still shows the same, and retains its semblance even in trite, familiar, and everyday expressions. and if his master do now and then require something of rant and noise, he doth but (like a skilful flutist) set open all the holes of his pipe, and their presently stop them again with good decorum and restore the tune to its natural state. and though there be a great number of excellent artists of all professions, yet never did any shoemaker make the same sort of shoe, or tireman the same sort of visor, or tailor the same sort of garment, to fit a man, a woman, a child, an old man, and a slave. but menander hath so addressed his style, as to proportion it to every sex, condition, and age; and this, though he took the business in hand when he was very young, and died in the vigor of his composition and action, when, as aristotle tells us, authors receive most and greatest improvement in their styles. if a man shall then compare the middle and last with the first of menander's plays, he will by them easily conceive what others he would have added to them, had he had but longer life. he adds further, that of dramatic exhibitors, some address themselves to the crowd and populace, and others again to a few; but it is a hard matter to say which of them all knew what was befitting in both the kinds. but aristophanes is neither grateful to the vulgar, nor tolerable to the wise; but it fares with his poesy as it doth with a courtesan who, when she finds she is now stricken and past her prime, counterfeits a sober matron, and then the vulgar cannot endure her affectation, and the better sort abominate her lewdness and wicked nature. but menander hath with his charms shown himself every way sufficient for satisfaction, being the sole lecture, argument, and dispute at theatres, schools, and at tables; hereby rendering his poesy the most universal ornament that was ever produced by greece, and showing what and how extraordinary his ability in language was, while he passes every way with an irresistible persuasion, and gains every man's ear and understanding who has any knowledge of the greek tongue. and for what other reason in truth should a man of parts and erudition be at the pains to frequent the theatre, but for the sake of menander only? and when are the playhouses better filled with men of letters, than when his comic mask is exhibited? and at private entertainments among friends, for whom doth the table more justly make room or bacchus give place than for menander? to philosophers also and hard students (as painters are wont, when they have tired out their eyes at their work, to divert them to certain florid and green colors) menander is a repose from their auditors and intense thinkings, and entertains their minds with gay shady meadows refreshed with cool and gentle breezes. he adds, moreover, that though this city breeds at this time very many and excellent representers of comedy, menander's plays participate of a plenteous and divine salt, as though they were made of the very sea out of which venus herself sprang. but that of aristophanes is harsh and coarse, and hath in it an angry and biting sharpness. and for my part i cannot tell where his so much boasted ability lies, whether in his style or persons. the parts he acts i am sure are quite overacted and depraved. his knave (for instance) is not fine, but dirty; his peasant is not assured, but stupid; his droll is not jocose, but ridiculous; and his lover is not gay, but lewd. so that to me the man seems not to have written his poesy for any temperate person, but to have intended his smut and obscenity for the debauched and lewd, his invective and satire for the malicious and ill-humored. end of fifteen-----the malice of herodotus. the style, o alexander, of herodotus, as being simple, free, and easily suiting itself to its subject, has deceived many; but more, a persuasion of his dispositions being equally sincere. for it is not only (as plato says) an extreme injustice, to make a show of being just when one is not so; but it is also the highest malignity, to pretend to simplicity and mildness and be in the meantime really most malicious. now since he principally exerts his malice against the boeotians and corinthians, though without sparing any other, i think myself obliged to defend our ancestors and the truth against this part of his writings, since those who would detect all his other lies and fictions would have need of many books. but, as sophocles has it, the face of persuasion, is prevalent, especially when delivered in the good language, and such as has power to conceal both the other absurdities and the ill-nature of the writer. king philip told the greeks who revolted from him to titus quinctius that they had got a more polished, but a longer lasting yoke. so the malice of herodotus is indeed more polite and delicate than that of theopompus, yet it pinches closer, and makes a more severe impression,--not unlike to those winds which, blowing secretly through narrow chinks, are sharper than those that are more diffused. now it seems to me very convenient to delineate, as it were, in the rough draught, those signs and marks that distinguish a malicious narration from a candid and unbiassed one, applying afterwards every point we shall examine to such as appertain to them. first then, whoever in relating a story shall use the odious terms when gentler expressions might do as well, is it not to be esteemed impartial, but an enjoyer of his own fancy, in putting the worst construction on things; as if any one, instead of saying nicias is too superstitious, should call him fanatic, or should accuse cleon of presumption and madness rather than of inconsiderateness in speech.----------secondly, when a writer, catching hold of a fault which has no reference to his story, shall draw it into the relation of such affairs as need it not, extending his narrative with cicumlocutions, only that he may insert a man's misfortune, offence, or discommendable action, it is manifest that he delights in speaking evil. therefore thucydides would not clearly relate the faults of cleon, which were very numerous; and as for hyperbolus the orator, having touched at him in a word and called him an ill man, he let him go. philistus also passed over all those outrages committed by dionysius on the barbarians which had no connection with the grecian affairs. for the excursions and digressions of history are principally allowed for fables and antiquities, and sometimes also for encomiums. but he who makes reproaches and detractions an addition to his discourse seems to incur the tragedian's curse on the "collector of men's calamities." now the opposite to this is known to every one, as the omitting to relate some good and laudable action, which, though it may seem not to be reprehensible, yet is then done maliciously when the omission happens in a place that is pertinent to the history. for to praise unwillingly is so far from being more civil than to dispraise willingly, that it is perhaps rather more uncivil. the fourth sign of a partial disposition in writing of history i take to be this: when a matter is related in two or more several manners, and the historian shall embrace the worst. sophisters indeed are permitted, for the obtaining either of profit or reputation, to undertake the defence of the worst cause; for they neither create any firm belief of the matter, nor yet do they deny that they are often pleased in maintaining paradoxes and making incredible things appear probable. but an historian is then just, when he asserts such things as he knows to be true, and of those that are uncertain reports rather the better than the worse. nay, there are many writers who wholly omit the worse. thus ephorus writes of themistocles, that he was acquainted with the treason of pausanias and his negotiations with the king's lieutenants, but that he neither consented to it, nor hearkened to pausanias's proffers of making him partaker of his hopes; and thucydides left the whole matter out of his story, as judging it to be false. moreover, in things confessed to have been done, but for doing which the cause and intention is unknown, he who casts his conjectures on the worst side is partial and malicious. thus do the comedians, who affirm the peloponnesian war to have been kindled by pericles for the love of aspasia or the sake of phidias, and not through any desire of honor, or ambition of pulling down the peloponnesian pride and giving place in nothing to the lacedaemonians. for those who suppose a bad cause for laudable works and commendable actions, endeavoring by calumnies to insinuate sinister suspicions of the actor when they cannot openly discommend the act,--as they that impute the killing of alexander the tyrant by theba not to any magnanimity or hatred of vice, but to a certain feminine jealousy and passion, and those that say cato slew himself for fear caesar should put him to a more shameful death,--such as these are manifestly in the highest degree envious and malicious. an historical narration is also more or less guilty of malice, according as it relates the manner of the action; as if one should be said to have performed an exploit rather by money than bravery, as some affirm of philip; or else easily and without any labor, as it is said of alexander; or else not by prudence, but by fortune, as the enemies of timotheus painted cities falling into his nets as he lay sleeping. for they undoubtedly diminish the greatness and beauty of the actions, who deny the performer of them to have done them generously, industriously, virtuously, and by themselves. moreover, those who will directly speak ill of any one incur the reproach of moroseness, rashness, and madness, unless they keep within measure. but they who send forth calumnies obliquely, as if they were shooting arrows out of corners, and then stepping back think to conceal themselves by saying they do not believe what they most earnestly desire to have believed, whilst they disclaim all malice, condemn themselves also of farther disingenuity. next to these are they who with their reproaches intermix some praises, as did aristoxenus, who, having termed socrates unlearned, ignorant, and libidinous, added, yet was he free from injustice. for, as they who flatter artificially and craftily sometimes mingle light reprehensions with their many and great praises, joining this liberty of speech as a sauce to their flattery; so malice, that it may gain belief to its accusations, adds also praise. we might here also reckon up more notes; but these are sufficient to let us understand the nature and manners of herodotus. first therefore,--beginning, as the proverb is, with vesta,--whereas all the grecians affirm io, daughter to inachus, to have been worshipped with divine honor by the barbarians, and by her glory to have left her name to many seas and principal ports, and to have given a source and original to most noble and royal families; this famous author says of her, that she gave herself to certain phoenician merchants, having been not unwillingly deflowered by a mariner, and fearing lest she should be found by her friends to be with child (herodotus, i. 5.) and he belies the phoenicians as having delivered these things of her, and says that the persian stories testify of her being carried away by the phoenicians with other women. (ibid. i. 1.) presently after, he gives sentence on the bravest and greatest exploits of greece, saying that the trojan war was foolishly undertaken for an ill woman. for it is manifest, says he, that had they not been willing they had never been ravished. (ibid. i. 4.) let us then say, that the gods also acted foolishly, in inflicting their indignation on the spartans for abusing the daughters of scedasus the leuctrian, and in punishing ajax for the violation of cassandra. for it is manifest, if we believe herodotus, that if they had not been willing they had never been defiled. and yet he himself said that aristomenes was taken alive by the spartans; and the same afterwards happened to philopoemen, general of the achaeans; and the carthaginians took regulus, the consul of the romans; than whom there are not easily to be found more valiant and warlike men. nor is it to be wondered, since even leopards and tigers are taken alive by men. but herodotus blames the poor women that have been abused by violence, and patronizes their ravishers. nay, he is so favorable to the barbarians, that, acquitting busiris of those human sacrifices and that slaughter of his guests for which he is accused, and attributing by his testimony to the egyptians much religion and justice, he endeavors to cast that abominable wickedness and those impious murders on the grecians. for in his second book he says, that menelaus, having received helen from proteus and having been honored by him with many presents, showed himself a most unjust and wicked man; for wanting a favorable wind to set sail, he found out an impious device, and having taken two of the inhabitants' boys, consulted their entrails; for which villany being hated and persecuted, he fled with his ships directly into libya. (see herodotus, ii. 45.) from what egyptian this story proceeds, i know not. for, on the contrary, many honors are even at this day given by the egyptians to helen and menelaus. the same herodotus, that he may still be like himself, says that the persians learned the defiling of the male sex from the greeks. (ibid, i. 135.) and yet how could the greeks have taught this impurity to the persians, amongst whom, as is confessed by many, boys had been castrated before ever they arrived in the grecian seas? he writes also, that the greeks were instructed by the egyptians in their pomps, solemn festivals, and worship of the twelve gods; that melampus also learned of the egyptians the name of dionysus (or bacchus) and taught it the other greeks; that the mysteries likewise and rites of ceres were brought out of egypt by the daughters of danaus; and that the egyptians were wont to beat themselves and make great lamentation, but yet he himself refused to tell the names of their deities, but concealed them in silence. as to hercules and bacchus, whom the egyptians named gods, and the greeks very aged men, he nowhere has such scruples and hesitation; although he places also the egyptian hercules amongst the gods of the second rank, and bacchus amongst those of the third, as having had some beginning of their being and not being eternal, and yet he pronounces those to be gods; but to the gods bacchus and hercules, as having been mortal and being now demi-gods, he thinks we ought to perform anniversary solemnities, but not to sacrifice to them as to gods. the same also he said of pan, overthrowing the most venerable and purest sacrifices of the greeks by the proud vanities and mythologies of the egyptians. (for the passages referred to in this chapter, see herodotus, ii. 48, 51, 145, 146, 171.) nor is this impious enough; but moreover, deriving the pedigree of hercules from perseus, he says that perseus was an assyrian, as the persians affirm. "but the leaders," says he, "of the dorians may appear to be descended in a right line from the egyptians, reckoning their ancestors from before danae and acrisius." (herodotus, vi. 53, 54.) here he has wholly passed by epaphus, io, iasus, and argus, being ambitious not only to make the other herculeses egyptians and phoenicians but to carry this also, whom himself declares to have been the third, out of greece to the barbarians. but of the ancient learned writers, neither homer, nor hesiod, nor archilochus, nor pisander, nor stesichorus, nor alcman, nor pindar, makes any mention of the egyptian or the phoenician hercules, but all acknowledge this our own boeotian and argive hercules. now of the seven sages, whom he calls sophisters, he affirms thales to have been a barbarian, descended of the phoenicians. (ibid, i. 170.) speaking ill also of the gods under the person of solon, he has these words: "thou, o croesus, askest me concerning human affairs, who know that every one of the deities envious and tumultuous." (ibid, i. 32.) thus attributing to solon what himself thinks of the gods, he joins malice to blasphemy. having made use also of pittacus in some trivial matters, not worth the mentioning, he has passed over the greatest and gallantest action that was ever done by him. for when the athenians and mitylenaeans were at war about sigaeum, phrynon, the athenian general, challenging whoever would come forth to a single combat, pittacus advanced to meet him, and catching him in a net, slew that stout and giant-like man; for which when the mitylaenans offered him great presents, darting his javelin as far as he could out of his hand, he desired only so much ground as he should reach with that throw; and the place is to this day called pittacium. now what does herodotus, when he comes to this? instead of pittacus's valiant act, he tells us the fight of alcaeus the poet, who throwing away his arms ran out of the battle; by thus not writing of honorable deeds and not passing over such as are dishonorable, he offers his testimony to those who say, that from one and the same malice proceed both envy and a rejoicing at other men's harms. (herodotus v. 95.) after this, he accuses of treason the alcmaeonidae who showed themselves generous men, and delivered their country from tyranny. (ibid. i. 61.) he says, that they received pisistratus after his banishment and got him called home, on condition he should marry the daughter of megacles; but the damsel saying to her mother, do you see, mother, how i am known by pisistratus contrary to nature? the alcmaeonidae were so offended at this villany, that they expelled the tyrant. now that the lacedaemonians might have no less share of his malice than the athenians, behold how he bespatters othryadas, the man most admired and honored by them. "he only," says herodotus, "remaining alive of the three hundred, and ashamed to return to sparta, his companions being lost, slew himself on the spot at thyreae." (ibid. i. 82.) for having before said the victory was doubtful on both sides, he here, by making othryadas ashamed, witnesses that the lacedaemonians were vanquished. for it was shameful for him to survive, if conquered; but glorious, if conqueror. i pass by now, that having, represented croesus as foolish, vainglorious, and ridiculous in all things, he makes him, when a prisoner, to have taught and instructed cyrus, who seems to have excelled all other kings in prudence, virtue, and magnanimity. (ibid. i. 155, 156, 207, 208.) having testified of the same croesus nothing else that was commendable but his honoring the gods with many and great oblations, he shows that very act of his to have been the most impious of all. for he says, that he and his brother pantoleon contended for the kingdom while their father was yet alive; and that croesus, having obtained the crown, caused a companion and familiar friend of pantoleon's to be torn in pieces in a fulling-mill, and sent presents to the gods from his property. (ibid. i. 92.) of deioces also, the median, who by virtue and justice obtained the government, he says that he got it not by real but pretended justice. (ibid. i. 96.) but i let pass the barbarian examples, since he has offered us plenty enough in the grecian affairs. he says, that the athenians and many other ionians were so ashamed of that name that they wholly refused to be called ionians; and that those who esteemed themselves the noblest among them, and who had come forth from the very prytaneum of athens, begat children on barbarian wives whose parents, husbands, and former children they had slain; that the women had therefore made a law among themselves, confirmed it by oath, and delivered it to be kept by their daughters, never to eat with their husbands, nor to call any of them by his name; and that the present milesians are descended from these women. having afterwards added that those are true ionians who celebrate the feast called apaturia; they all, says he, keep it except the ephesians and colophonians. (herodotus, i. 143-148.) in this manner does he deprive these two states of their nobility. he says moreover, that the cumaeans and mitylenaeans agreed with cyrus to deliver up to him for a price pactyas, who had revolted from him. i know not indeed, says he, for how much; since it is not certain what it was. bravo!--not to know what it was, and yet to cast such an infamy on a grecian city, without an assured knowledge! he says farther, that the chians took pactyas, who was brought to them out of the temple of minerva poliuchus (or guardianess of the city), and delivered him up, having received the city atarneus for their recompense. and yet charon the lampsacenian, a more ancient writer, relating this matter concerning pactyas, charges neither the mitylenaeans nor the chians with any such action. these are his very words: "pactyas, hearing that the persian army drew near, fled first to mitylene, then to chios, and there fell into the hands of cyrus." (see herodotus, i. 157. etc.) our author in his third book, relating the expedition of the lacedaemonians against the tyrant polycrates, affirms, that the samians think and say that the spartans, to recompense them for their former assistance against the messenians, both brought back the samians that were banished, and made war on the tyrant; but that the lacedaemonians deny this, and say, they undertook this design not to help or deliver the samians, but to punish them for having taken away a cup sent by them to croesus, and besides, a breastplate sent them by amasis. (ibid. iii. 47, 48.) and yet we know that there was not at that time any city so desirous of honor, or such an enemy to tyrants, as sparta. for what breastplate or cup was the cause of their driving the cypselidae out of corinth and ambracia, lygdamis out of naxos, the children of pisistratus out of athens, aeschines out of sicyon, symmachus out of thasus, aulis out of phocis, and aristogenes out of miletus; and of their overturning the domineering powers of thessaly, pulling down aristomedes and angelus by the help of king leotychides?--which facts are elsewhere more largely described. now, if herodotus says true, they were in the highest degree guilty both of malice and folly, when, denying a most honorable and most just cause of their expedition, they confessed that in remembrance of a former injury, and too highly valuing an inconsiderable matter, they invaded a miserable and afflicted people. now perhaps he gave the lacedaemonians this stroke, as directly falling under his pen; but the city of corinth, which was wholly out of the course of his story, he has brought in--going out of his way (as they say) to fasten upon it--and has bespattered it with a most filthy crime and most shameful calumny. "the corinthians," says he, "studiously helped this expedition of the lacedaemonians to samos, as having themselves also been formerly affronted by the samians." the matter was this. periander tyrant of corinth sent three hundred boys, sons to the principal men of corcyra, to king alyattes, to be gelt. these, going ashore in the island of samos, were by the samians taught to sit as suppliants in the temple of diana, where they preserved them, setting before them for their food sesame mingled with honey. this our author calls an affront put by the samians on the corinthians, who therefore instigated the lacedaemonians against them, to wit, because the samians had saved three hundred children of the greeks from being unmanned. by attributing this villany to the corinthians, he makes the city more wicked than the tyrant. he indeed was revenging himself on those of corcyra who had slain his son; but what had the corinthians suffered, that they should punish the samians for putting an obstacle to so great a cruelty and wickedness?--and this, after three generations, reviving the memory of an old quarrel for the sake of that tyranny, which they found so grievous and intolerable that they are still endlessly abolishing all the monuments and marks of it, though long since extinct. such then was the injury done by the samians to the corinthians. now what a kind of punishment was it the corinthians would have inflicted on them? had they been indeed angry with the samians, they should not have incited the lacedaemonians, but rather diverted them from their war against polycrates, that the samians might not by the tyrant's overthrow recover liberty, and be freed from their slavery. but (what is most to be observed) why were the corinthians so offended with the samians, that desired indeed but were not able to save the corcyraeans children, and yet were not displeased with the cnidians, who both preserved them and restored them to their friends? nor indeed have the corcyraeans any great esteem for the samians on this account; but of the cnidians they preserve a grateful recollection, having granted them several honors and privileges, and made decrees in their favor. for these, sailing to samos, drove away periander's guards from the temple, and taking the children aboard their ships, carried them safe to corcyra; as it is recorded by antenor the cretan, and by dionysius the chalcidian in his foundations. now that the spartans undertook not this war on any design of punishing the samians, but to save them by delivering them from the tyrant, we have the testimony of the samians themselves. for they affirm that there is in samos a monument erected at the public charge, and honors there done to archias a spartan, who fell fighting valiantly in that quarrel; for which cause also his posterity still keep a familiar and friendly correspondence with the samians, as herodotus himself witnesses. in his fifth book, he says, that clisthenes, one of the best and noblest men in athens, persuaded the priestess pythia to be a false prophetess, and always to exhort the lacedaemonians to free athens from the tyrants; calumniating this most excellent and just action by the imputation of so great a wickedness and imposture, and taking from apollo the credit of that true and good prophecy, beseeming even themis herself, who is also said to have joined with him. he says farther, that isagoras prostituted his wife to cleomenes, who came to her. (herodotus, v. 63, 70.) then, as his manner is, to gain credit by mixing some praises with his reproaches, he says: isagoras the son of tisander was of a noble family, but i cannot tell the original of it; his kinsmen, however, sacrifice to the carian jupiter. (herodotus, v. 66.) o this pleasant and cunning scoffer of a writer, who thus disgracefully sends isagoras to the carians, as it were to the ravens. as for aristogiton, he puts him not forth at the back door, but thrusts him directly out of the gate into phoenicia, saying that he had his original from the gephyraeans, and that the gephyraeans were not, as some think, euboeans or eretrians, but phoenicians, as himself has heard by report. (ibid, v. 58.) and since he cannot altogether take from the lacedaemonians the glory of having delivered the athenians from the tyrants, he endeavors to cloud and disgrace that most honorable act by as foul a passion. for he says, they presently repented of it, as not having done well, in that they had been persuaded by spurious and deceitful oracles to drive the tyrants, who were their allies and had promised to put athens into their hands, out of their country, and had restored the city to an ungrateful people. he adds, that they were about to send for hippias from sigeum, and bring him back to athens; but that they were opposed by the corinthians, sosicles telling them how much the city of corinth had suffered under the tyranny of cypselus and periander. (ibid, v. 90, 91.) and yet there was no outrage of periander's more abominable and cruel than his sending the three hundred children to be emasculated, for the delivering and saying of whom from that contumely the corinthians, he says, were angry and bore a grudge against the samians, as having put an affront upon them. with so much repugnance and contradiction is that malice of his discourse filled, which on every occasion insinuates itself into his narrations. after this, relating the action of sardis, he, as much as in him lies, diminishes and discredits the matter; being so audacious as to call the ships which the athenians sent to the assistance of the ionians, who had revolted from the king the beginning of evils, because they endeavored to deliver so many and so great grecian cities from the barbarians. (ibid, v. 97.) as to the eretrians, making mention of them only by the way, he passes over in silence a great, gallant, and memorable action of theirs. for when all ionia was in a confusion and uproar, and the king's fleet drew nigh, they, going forth to meet him, overcame in a sea-fight the cyprians in the pamphylian sea. then turning back and leaving their ships at ephesus, they invaded sardis and besieged artaphernes, who was fled into the castle, that so they might raise the siege of miletus. and this indeed they effected, causing the enemies to break up their camp and remove thence in a wonderful fright, and then seeing themselves in danger to be oppressed by a multitude, retired. this not only others, but lysanias of mallus also in his history of eretria relates, thinking it convenient, if for no other reason, yet after the taking and destruction of the city, to add this valiant and heroic act. but this writer of ours says, they were defeated, and pursued even to their ships by the barbarians; though charon the lampsacenian has no such thing, but writes thus, word for word: "the athenians set forth with twenty galleys to the assistance of the ionians, and going to sardis, took all thereabouts, except the king's wall; which having done, they returned to miletus." in his sixth book, our author, discoursing of the plataeans,--how they gave themselves to the lacedaemonians, who exhorted them rather to have recourse to the athenians, who were nearer to them and no bad defenders,--adds, not as a matter of suspicion or opinion, but as a thing certainly known by him, that the lacedaemonians gave the plataeans this advice, not so much for any goodwill, as through a desire to find work for the athenians by engaging them with the boeotians. (herodotus, vi. 108.) if then herodotus is not malicious, the lacedaemonians must have been both fraudulent and spiteful; and the athenians fools, in suffering themselves to be thus imposed on; and the plataeans were brought into play, not for any good-will or respect, but as an occasion of war. he is farther manifestly convinced of belying the lacedaemonians, when he says that, whilst they expected the full moon, they failed of giving their assistance to the athenians at marathon. for they not only made a thousand other excursions and fights at the beginning of the month, without staying for the full moon; but wanted so little of being present at this very battle, which was fought the sixth day of the month boedromion, that at their coming they found the dead still lying in the field. and yet he has written thus of the full moon: "it was impossible for them to do these things at that present, being unwilling to break the law; for it was the ninth of the month, and they said, they could not go forth on the ninth day, the orb of the moon being not yet full. and therefore they stayed for the full moon." (herodotus, vi. 106.) but thou, o herodotus, transferest the full moon from the middle to the beginning of the month, and at the same time confoundest the heavens, days, and all things; and yet thou dost claim to be the historian of greece! and professing to write more particularly and carefully of the affairs of athens, thou dost not so much as say a word of that solemn procession which the athenians even at this day send to agrae, celebrating a feast of thanksgiving to hecate for their victory. but this helps herodotus to refel the crime with which he is charged, of having flattered the athenians for a great sum of money he received of them. for if he had rehearsed these things to them, they would not have omitted or neglected to remark that philippides, when on the ninth he summoned the lacedaemonians to the fight, must have come from it himself, since (as herodotus says) he went in two days from athens to sparta; unless the athenians sent for their allies to the fight after their enemies were overcome. indeed diyllus the athenian, none of the most contemptible as an historian, says, that he received from athens a present of ten talents, anytus proposing the decree. moreover herodotus, as many say, has in relating the fight at marathon derogated from the credit of it, by the number he sets down of the slain. for it is said that the athenians made a vow to sacrifice so many kids to diana agrotera, as they should kill barbarians; but that after the fight, the number of the dead appearing infinite, they appeased the goddess by making a decree to immolate five hundred to her every year. but letting this pass, let us see what was done after the fight. "the barbarians," say he, "retiring back with the rest of their ships, and taking the eretrian slaves out of the island, where they had left them, doubled the point of sunium, desiring to prevent the athenians before they could gain the city. the athenians suspected this to have been done by a plot of the alcmaeonidae, who by agreement showed a shield to the persians when they were got into their ships. they therefore doubled the cape of sunium." (herodotus, vi. 115, 121-124.) let us in this place take no notice of his calling the eretrians slaves, who showed as much courage and gallantry in this war as any other of the grecians, and suffered things unworthy their virtue. nor let us insist much on the calumny with which he defames the alcmaeonidae, some of whom were both the greatest families and noblest men of the city. but the greatness of the victory itself is overthrown, and the end of that so celebrated action comes to nothing, nor does it seem to have been a fight or any great exploit, but only a light skirmish with the barbarians, as the envious and ill-willers affirm, if they did not after the battle fly away, cutting their cables and giving themselves to the wind, to carry them as far as might be from the attic coast, but having a shield lifted up to them as a signal of treason, made straight with their fleet for athens, in hope to surprise it, and having at leisure doubled the point of sunium, were discovered above the port phalerum, so that the chief and most illustrious men, despairing to save the city would have betrayed it. for a little after, acquitting the alcmaeonidae, he charges others with the treason. "for the shield indeed was shown, nor can it be denied," says he, as if he had seen it himself. but this could no way be, since the athenians obtained a solid victory; and if it had been done, it could not have been seen by the barbarians, flying in a hurry amidst wounds and arrows into their ships, and leaving every one the place with all possible speed. but when he again pretends to excuse the alcmaeonidae of those crimes which he first of all men objected against them, and speaks thus: "i cannot credit the report that the alcmaeonidae by agreement would ever have lifted up a shield to the persians, and have brought the athenians under the power of the barbarians and hippias"; it reminds me of a certain proverbial saving,--stay and be caught, crab, and i'll let you go. for why art thou so eager to catch him, if thou wilt let him go when he is caught? thus you first accuse, then apologize; and you write calumnies against illustrious men, which again you refute. and you discredit yourself; for you heard no one else but yourself say that the alcmaeonidae lifted up a shield to the vanquished and flying barbarians. and in those very things which you allege for the alcmaeonidae, you show yourself a sycophant. for if, as here you write, the alcmaeonidae were more or no less enemies to tyrants than callias, the son of phaenippus and father of hipponicus, where will you place their conspiracy, of which you write in your first book, that assisting pisistratus they brought him back from exile to the tyranny and did not drive him away till he was accused of unnaturally abusing his wife? such then are the repugnances of these things; and by his intermixing the praises of callias, the son of phaenippus, amidst the crimes and suspicions of the alcmaeonidae, and joining to him his son hipponicus, who was (as herodotus himself says) one of the richest men in athens, he confesses that he brought in callias not for any necessity of the story, but to ingratiate himself and gain favor with hipponicus. now, whereas all know that the argives denied not to enter into the common league of the grecians, though they thought not fit to follow and be under the command of the lacedaemonians, who were their mortal enemies, and that this was no otherways, our author subjoins a most malicious cause for it, writing thus: "when they saw they were comprised by the greeks, knowing that the lacedaemonians would not admit them into a share of the command, they requested it, that they might have a pretence to lie still." "and of this," he says, "the argive ambassadors afterwards put artaxerxes in mind, when they attended him at susa, and the king said, he esteemed no city more his friend than argos." then adding, as his manner is, to cover the matter, he says: "of these things i know nothing certainly; but this i know, that all men have faults, and that the worst things were not done by the argives; but i must tell such things as are reported, though i am not bound to believe them all; and let this be understood of all my narrations. for it is farther said that the argives, when they were not able to sustain the war against the lacedaemonians, called the persians into greece, willing to suffer anything rather than the present trouble." (herodotus, vii. 148-152.) therefore, as himself reports the ethiopian to have said of the ointment and purple, "deceitful are the beauties, deceitful the garments of the persians," (herodotus, iii. 22.) may not any one say also of him, deceitful are the phrases, deceitful the figures of herodotus's speeches; as being perplexed, unsound, and full of ambiguities? for as painters set off and render more eminent the luminous part of their pictures by adding shadows, so he by his denials extends his calumnies, and by his dubious speeches makes his suspicions take deeper impression. if the argives joined not with the other greeks, but stood out through an emulation of the lacedaemonians command and valor, it cannot be denied but that they acted in a manner not beseeming their nobility and descent from hercules. for it had been more honorable for the argives under the leadership of siphnians and cythnians to have defended the grecian liberty, than contending with the spartans for superiority to have avoided so many and such signal combats. and if it was they who brought the persians into greece, because their war against the lacedaemonians succeeded ill, how came it to pass, that they did not at the coming of xerxes openly join themselves to the medes? or if they would not fight under the king, why did they not, being left at home, make incursions into laconia or again attempt thyreae or by some other way disturb and infest the lacedaemonians? for they might have greatly damaged the grecians, by hindering the spartans from going with so great an army to plataea. but in this place indeed he has highly magnified the athenians and pronounced them the saviours of greece, doing herein rightly and justly, if he had not intermixed many reproaches with their praises. but now, when he says (ibid. vii. 139.) that (but for the athenians) the lacedaemonians would have been betrayed by the other greeks, and then, being left alone and having performed great exploits, they would have died generously; or else, having before seen that the greeks were favoring the medes, they would have made terms with xerxes; it is manifest, he speaks not these things to the commendation of the athenians, but he praises the athenians that he may speak ill of all the rest. for how can any one now be angry with him for so bitterly and intemperately upbraiding the thebans and phocians at every turn, when he charges even those who exposed themselves to all perils for greece with a treason which was never acted, but which (as he thinks) might have been. nay, of the lacedaemonians themselves, he makes it doubtful whether they might have fallen in the battle or have yielded to the enemy, minimizing the proofs of their valor which were shown at thermopylae;--and these indeed were small! after this, when he declares the shipwreck that befell the king's fleet, and how, an infinite mass of wealth being cast away, aminocles the magnesian, son of cresines, was greatly enriched by it, having gotten an immense quantity of gold and silver; he could not so much as let this pass without snarling at it. "for this man," say she, "who had till then been none of the most fortunate, by wrecks became exceeding rich; for the misfortune he had in killing his son much afflicted his mind." (herodotus, vii. 190.) this indeed is manifest to every one, that he brought this golden treasure and this wealth cast up by the sea into his history, that he might make way for the inserting aminocles's killing his son. now aristophanes the boeotian wrote, that herodotus demanded money of the thebans but received none and that going about to discourse and reason with the young men, he was prohibited by the magistrates through their clownishness and hatred of learning; of which there is no other argument. but herodotus bears witness to aristophanes, whilst he charges the thebans with some things falsely, with others ignorantly, and with others as hating them and having a quarrel with them. for he affirms that the thessalians at first upon necessity inclined to the persians, (ibid, vii. 172.) in which he says the truth; and prophesying of the other grecians that they would betray the lacedaemonians, he added, that they would not do it willingly, but upon necessity, one city being taken after another. but he does not allow the thebans the same plea of necessity, although they sent to tempe five hundred men under the command of mnamias, and to thermopylae as many as leonidas desired, who also alone with the thespians stood by him, the rest leaving him after he was surrounded. but when the barbarian, having possessed himself of the avenues, was got into their confines, and demaratus the spartan, favoring in right of hospitality attaginus, the chief of the oligarchy, had so wrought that he became the king's friend and familiar, whilst the other greeks were in their ships, and none came on by land; then at last being forsaken did they accept conditions of peace, to which they were compelled by great necessity. for they had neither the sea and ships at hand, as had the athenians; nor did they dwell far off, as the spartans, who inhabited the most remote parts of greece; but were not above a day and half's journey from the persian army, whom they had already with the spartans and thespians alone resisted at the entrance of the straits, and were defeated. but this writer is so equitable, that having said, "the lacedaemonians, being alone and deserted by their allies, would perhaps have made a composition with xerxes," he yet blames the thebans, who were forced to the same act by the same necessity. but when he could not wholly obliterate this most great and glorious act of the thebans, yet went he about to deface it with a most vile imputation and suspicion, writing thus: "the confederates who had been sent returned back, obeying the commands of leonidas; there remained only with the lacedaemonians the thespians and the thebans: of these, the thebans stayed against their wills, for leonidas retained them as hostages; but the thespians most willingly, as they said they would never depart from leonidas and those that were with him." (herodotus, vii. 222.) does he not here manifestly discover himself to have a peculiar pique and hatred against the thebans, by the impulse of which he not only falsely and unjustly calumniated the city, but did not so much as take care to render his contradiction probable, or to conceal, at least from a few men, his being conscious of having knowingly contradicted himself? for having before said that leonidas, perceiving his confederates not to be in good heart nor prepared to undergo danger, wished them to depart, he a little after adds that the thebans were against their wills detained by him; whereas, if he had believed them inclined to the persians, he should have driven them away though they had been willing to tarry. for if he thought that those who were not brisk would be useless, to what purpose was it to mix among his soldiers those that were suspected? nor was the king of the spartans and general of all greece so senseless as to think that four hundred armed thebans could be detained as hostages by his three hundred, especially the enemy being both in his front and rear. for though at first he might have taken them along with him as hostages; it is certainly probable that at last, having no regard for him, they would have gone away from him, and that leonidas would have more feared his being encompassed by them than by the enemy. furthermore, would not leonidas have been ridiculous, to have sent away the other greeks, as if by staying they should soon after have died, and to have detained the thebans, that being himself about to die, he might keep them for the greeks? for if he had indeed carried them along with him for hostages, or rather for slaves, he should not have kept them with those that were at the point of perishing, but have delivered them to the greeks that went away. there remained but one cause that might be alleged for leonidas's unwillingness to let them go, to wit, that they might die with him; and this our historian himself has taken away, writing thus of leonidas's ambition: "leonidas, considering these things, and desirous that this glory might redound to the spartans alone, sent away his confederates rather for this than because they differed in their opinions." (herodotus, vii. 220.) for it had certainly been the height of folly to keep his enemies against their wills, to be partakers of that glory from which he drove away his confederates. but it is manifest from the effects, that leonidas suspected not the thebans of insincerity, but esteemed them to be his steadfast friends. for he marched with his army into thebes, and at his request obtained that which was never granted to any other, to sleep within the temple of hercules; and the next morning he related to the thebans the vision that had appeared to him. for he imagined that he saw the most illustrious and greatest cities of greece irregularly tossed and floating up and down on a very stormy and tempestuous sea; that thebes, being carried above all the rest, was lifted up on high to heaven, and suddenly after disappeared. and this indeed had a resemblance of those things which long after befell that city. now herodotus, in his narration of that fight, hath obscured also the bravest act of leonidas, saying that they all fell in the straits near the hill. (herodotus, vii. 225.) but the affair was otherwise managed. for when they perceived by night that they were encompassed by the barbarians, they marched straight to the enemies' camp, and got very near the king's pavilion, with a resolution to kill him and leave their lives about him. they came then to his tent, killing or putting to flight all they met; but when xerxes was not found there, seeking him in that vast camp and wandering about, they were at last with much difficulty slain by the barbarians, who surrounded them on every side. what other acts and sayings of the spartans herodotus has omitted, we will write in the life of leonidas; yet that hinders not but we may here set down also some few. before leonidas went forth to that war, the spartans exhibited to him funeral spectacles, at which the fathers and mothers of those that went along with him were spectators. leonidas himself, when one said to him, you lead very few with you to the battle, answered, there are many to die there. when his wife, at his departure, asked him what commands he had for her; he, turning to her, said, i command you to marry a good man, and bring him good children. after he was enclosed by the enemy at thermopylae, desiring to save two that were related to him, he gave one of them a letter and sent him away; but he rejected it, saying angrily, i followed you as a soldier, not as a postman. the other he commanded to go on a message to the magistrates of sparta; but he, answering, that is a messenger's business, took his shield, and stood up in his rank. who would not have blamed another that should have omitted these things? but he who has collected and recorded the fart of amasis, the coming of the thief's asses, and the giving of bottles, and many such like things, cannot seem to have omitted these gallant acts and these remarkable sayings by negligence and oversight, but as bearing ill-will and being unjust to some. he says that the thebans, being at the first with the greeks, fought compelled by necessity. (ibid, vii. 233.) for belike not only xerxes, but leonidas also, had whipsters following his camp, by whom the thebans were scourged and forced against their wills to fight. and what more ruthless libeller could there be than herodotus, when he says that they fought upon necessity, who might have gone away and fled, and that they inclined to the persians, whereas not one came in to help them. after this, he writes that, the rest making to the hill, the thebans separated themselves from them, lifted up their hands to the barbarian, and coming near, cried with a most true voice, that they had favored the persians, had given earth and water to the king, that now being forced by necessity they were come to thermopylae, and that they were innocent of the king's wound. having said these things, they obtained quarter; for they had the thessalians for witnesses of all they said. behold, how amidst the barbarians, exclamations, tumults of all sorts, flights and pursuits, their apology was heard, the witnesses examined; and the thessalians, in the midst of those that were slain and trodden under foot, all being done in a very narrow passage, patronized the thebans, to wit, because the thebans had but a little before driven away them, who were possessed of all greece as far as, thespiae, having conquered them in a battle, and slain their leader lattamyas! for thus at that time stood matters between the boeotians and the thessalians, without any friendship or good-will. but yet how did the thebans escape, the thessalians helping them with their testimonies? some of them, says he, were slain by the barbarians; many of them were by command of xerxes marked with the royal mark, beginning with their leader leontiades. now the captain of the thebans at thermopylae was not leontiades, but anaxander, as both aristophanes, out of the commentaries of the magistrates, and nicander the colophonian have taught us. nor did any man before herodotus know that the thebans were stigmatized by xerxes; for otherwise this would have been an excellent plea for them against his calumny, and this city might well have gloried in these marks, that xerxes had punished leonidas and leontiades as his greatest enemies, having outraged the body of the one when he was dead, and caused the other to be tormented whilst living. but as to a writer who makes the barbarian's cruelty against leonidas when dead a sign that he hated him most of all men when living, (herodotus, vii. 238.) and yet says that the thebans, though favoring the persians, were stigmatized by them at thermopylae, and having been thus stigmatized, again cheerfully took their parts at plataea, it seems to me that such a man--like that hippoclides (see herodotus, vi. 126-130.) who gesticulating with his limbs by standing on his head on a table--would dance away the truth and say, it makes no difference to herodotus. in the eighth book our author says, that the greeks being frighted designed to fly from artemisium into greece, and that, being requested by the euboeans to stay a little till they could dispose of their wives and families, they regarded them not, till such time as themistocles, having taken money of them, divided it between eurybiades and adimantus, the captain of the corinthians, and that then they stayed and had a sea-fight with the barbarians (ibid. viii. 4.) yet pindar, who was not a citizen of any of the confederate cities, but of one that was suspected to take part with the medians, having made mention of artemisium, brake forth into this exclamation: "this is the place where the sons of the athenians laid the glorious foundation of liberty." but herodotus, by whom, as some will have it, greece is honored, makes that victory a work of bribery and theft, saying that the greeks, deceived by their captains, who had to that end taken money, fought against their wills. nor does he here put an end to his malice. all men in a manner confess that, although the greeks got the better at sea, they nevertheless abandoned artemisium to the barbarians after they had received the news of the overthrow at thermopylae. for it was to no purpose for them to stay there and keep the sea, the war being already within thermopylae, and xerxes having possessed himself of the avenues. but herodotus makes the greeks contriving to fly before they heard anything of leonidas's death. for thus he says: "but they having been ill-treated, and especially the athenians, half of whose ships were sorely shattered, consulted to take their flight into greece." (ibid. viii. 18.) but let him be permitted so to name (or rather reproach) this retreat of theirs before the fight; but having before called it a flight, he both now styles it a flight, and will again a little after term it a flight; so bitterly does he adhere to this word "flight." "presently after this," says he, "there came to the barbarians in the pinnace a man of hestiaea, who acquainted them with the flight of the grecians from artemisium. they, because the thing seemed incredible, kept the messenger in custody, and sent forth some light galleys to discover the truth." (herodotus, viii. 23.) but what is this you say? that they fled as conquered, whom the enemies after the fight could not believe to have fled, as having got much the better? is then this a fellow fit to be believed when he writes of any man or city, who in one word deprives greece of the victory, throws down the trophy, and pronounces the inscriptions they had set up to diana proseoa (eastward-facing) to be nothing but pride and vain boasting? the tenor of the inscription was as follows:- when athens youth had in a naval fight all asia's forces on this sea o'verthrown, and all the persian army put to flight, than which a greater scare was ever known, to show how much diana they respected, this trophy to her honor they erected. moreover, not having described any order of the greeks, nor told us what place every city of theirs held during the sea-fight, he says that in this retreat, which he calls their flight, the corinthians sailed first and the athenians last. (ibid. viii, 21.) he indeed ought not to have too much insulted over the greeks that took part with the persians, who, being by others thought a thurian, reckons himself among the halicarnassians, who, being dorians by descent, went with their wives and children to the war against the greeks. but he is so far from giving first an account of the straits they were in who revolted to the persians, that, having related how the thessalians sent to the phocians, who were their mortal enemies, and promised to preserve their country free from all damage if they might receive from them a reward of fifty talents, he writ thus of the phocians: "for the phocians were the only people in these quarters who inclined not to the persians, and that, as far as i upon due consideration can find, for no other reason but because they hated the thessalians; for if the thessalians had been affected to the grecian affairs, i suppose the phocians would have joined themselves to the persians." and yet, a little after he would say that thirteen cities of the phocians were burned by the barbarians, their country laid waste, and the temple which was in abae set on fire, and all of both sexes put to the sword, except those that by flight escaped to parnassus. (herodotus, viii. 30-33. compare ix. 17.) nevertheless, he puts those who suffered all extremities rather than lose their honesty in the same rank with those who most affectionately sided with the persians. and when he could not blame the phocians actions, writing at his desk invented false causes and got up suspicions against them, and bids us judge them not by what they did, but by what they would have done if the thessalians had not taken the same side, as if they had been prevented from treason because they found the place already occupied by others! now if any one, going about to excuse the revolt of the thessalians to the persians, should say that they would not have done it but for the hatred they bare the phocians,--whom when they saw joined to the greeks, they against their inclinations followed the party of the persians,--would not such a one be thought most shamefully to flatter, and for the sake of others to pervert the truth, by reigning good causes for evil actions? indeed, i think, he would. why then would not he be thought openly to calumniate, who says that the phocians chose the best, not for the love of virtue, but because they saw the thessalians on the contrary side? for neither does he refer this device to other authors, as he is elsewhere wont to do, but says that himself found it out by conjecture. he should therefore have produced certain arguments, by which he was persuaded that they, who did things like the best, followed the same counsels with the worst. for what he alleges of their hatreds is ridiculous. for neither did the difference between the aeginetans and the athenians, nor that between the chalcidians and the eretrians, nor yet that between the corinthians and the megarians, hinder them from fighting together for greece. nor did the macedonians, their most bitter enemies, turn the thessalians from their friendship with the barbarians, by joining the persian party themselves. for the common danger did so bury their private grudges, that banishing their other passions, they applied their minds either to honesty for the sake of virtue, or to profit through the impulse of necessity. and indeed, after that necessity which compelled them to obey the persians was over, they returned again to the greeks, as lacrates the spartan has openly testified of them. and herodotus, as constrained to it, in his relation of the affairs at plataea, confessed that the phocians took part with the greeks. (herodotus, ix. 31.) neither ought it to seem strange to any, if he thus bitterly inveighs against the unfortunate; since he reckons amongst enemies and traitors those who were present at the engagement, and together with the other greeks hazarded their safety. for the naxians, says he, sent three ships to the assistance of the barbarians; but democritus, one of their captains, persuaded the others to take the party of the greeks. (ibid. viii. 46.) so unable he is to praise without dispraising, that if he commends one man he must condemn a whole city or people. but in this there give testimony against him, of the more ancient writers hellanicus, and of the later ephorus, one of which says that the naxians came with six ships to aid the greeks, and the other with five. and herodotus convinces himself of having feigned these things. for the writers of the naxian annals say, that they had before beaten back megabates, who came to their island with two hundred ships, and after that had put to flight the general datis who had set their city on fire. now if, as herodotus has elsewhere said, the barbarians burned their city so that the men were glad to save themselves by flying into the mountains, had they not just cause rather to send aid to the destroyers of their country than to help the protectors of the common liberty? but that he framed this lie not so much to honor democritus, as to cast infamy on the naxians, is manifest from his omitting and wholly passing over in silence the valiant acts then performed by democritus, of which simonides gives us an account in this epigram:- when as the greeks at sea the medes did meet, and had near salamis a naval fight, democritus as third led up the fleet, charging the enemy with all his might; he took five of their ships, and did another, which they had taken from the greeks, recover. but why should any one be angry with him about the naxians? if we have, as some say, antipodes inhabiting the other hemisphere, i believe that they also have heard of themistocles and his counsel, which he gave to the greeks, to fight a naval battle before salamis, on which, the barbarian being overcome, he built in melite a temple to diana the counsellor. this gentle writer, endeavoring, as much as in him lies, to deprive themistocles of the glory of this, and transfer it to another, writes thus word for word: "whilst things were thus, mnesiphilus, an athenian, asked themistocles, as he was going aboard his ship, what had been resolved on in council. and being answered, that it was decreed the ships should be brought back to isthmus, and a battle fought at sea before peloponnesus; he said, if then they remove the navy from salamis, you will no longer be fighting for one country for they will return every one to his own city. wherefore, if there be any way left, go and endeavor to break this resolution; and, if it be possible, persuade eurybiades to change his mind and stay here." then adding that this advice pleased themistocles, who, without making any reply, went straight to eurybiades, he has these very expressions: "and sitting by him he related what he had heard from mnesiphilus, feigning as if it came from himself, and adding other things." (herodotus, viii. 57, 58.) you see how he accuses themistocles of disingenuity in arrogating to himself the counsel of mnesiphilus. and deriding the greeks still further, he says, that themistocles, who was called another ulysses for his wisdom, was so blind that he could not foresee what was fit to be done; but that artemisia, who was of the same city with herodotus, without being taught by any one, but by her own consideration, said thus to xerxes: "the greeks will not long be able to hold out against you, but you will put them to flight, and they will retire to their own cities; nor is it probable, if you march your army by land to peloponnesus, that they will sit still, or take care to fight at sea for the athenians. but if you make haste to give them a naval battle, i fear lest your fleets receiving damage may prove also very prejudicial to your land-forces." (ibid. viii. 68.) certainly herodotus wanted nothing but verses to make artemisia another sibyl, so exactly prophesying of things to come. therefore xerxes also delivered his sons to her to be carried to ephesus for he had (it seems) forgot to bring women with him from susa, if indeed the children wanted a train of female attendants. but it is not our design to search into the lies of herodotus; we only make inquiry into those which he invented to detract from the glory of others. he says: "it is reported by the athenians that adimantus, captain of the corinthians, when the enemies were now ready to join battle, was struck with such fear and astonishment that he fled; not thrusting his ship backward by the stern, or leisurely retreating through those that were engaged, but openly hoisting up his sails, and turning the heads of all his vessels. and about the farther part of the salaminian coast, he was met by a pinnace, out of which one spake thus to him: thou indeed, adimantus, fliest, having betrayed the grecians; yet they overcome, and according to their desires have the better of their enemies." (herodotus, viii. 94.) this pinnace was certainly let down from heaven. for what should hinder him from erecting a tragical machine, who by his boasting excelled the tragedians in all other things? adimantus then crediting him (he adds) "returned to the fleet, when the business was already done." "this report," says he, "is believed by the athenians; but the corinthians deny it, and say, they were the first at the sea-fight, for which they have the testimony of all the other greeks." such is this man in many other places. he spreads different calumnies and accusations of different men, that he may not fail of making some one appear altogether wicked. and it has succeeded well with him in this place; for if the calumny is believed, the corinthians--if it is not, the athenians--are rendered infamous. but in reality the athenians did not belie the corinthians, but he hath belied them both. certainly thucydides, bringing in an athenian ambassador contesting with a corinthian at sparta, and gloriously boasting of many things about the persian war and the sea-fight at salamis, charges not the corinthians with any crime of treachery or leaving their station. nor was it likely the athenians should object any such thing against corinth, when they saw her engraven in the third place after the lacedaemonians and themselves on those spoils which, being taken from the barbarians, were consecrated to the gods. and in salamis they had permitted them to bury the dead near the city, as being men who had behaved themselves gallantly, and to write over them this elegy:- well-watered corinth, stranger, was our home; salamis, ajax's isle, is now our grave; here medes and persians and phoenician ships we fought and routed, sacred greece to save. and their honorary sepulchre at the isthmus has on it this epitaph:- when greece upon the point of danger stood, we fell, defending her with our life-blood. moreover, on the offerings of diodorus, one of the corinthian sea-captains, reserved in the temple of latona, there is this inscription:- diodorus's seamen to latona sent these arms, of hostile medes the monument and as for adimantus himself, against whom herodotus frequently inveighs,--saying, that he was the only captain who went about to fly from artemisium, and would not stay the fight,--behold in how great honor he is:- here adimantus rests: the same was he, whose counsels won for greece the crown of liberty. for neither is it probable, that such honor would have been shown to a coward and a traitor after his decease; nor would he have dared to give his daughters the names of nausinica, acrothinius, and alexibia, and his son that of aristeas, if he had not performed some illustrious and memorable action in that fight. nor is it credible that herodotus was ignorant of that which could not be unknown even to the meanest carian, that the corinthian women alone made that glorious and divine prayer, by which they besought the goddess venus to inspire their husbands with a love of fighting against the barbarians. for it was a thing divulged abroad, concerning which simonides made an epigram to be inscribed on the brazen image set up in that temple of venus which is said to have been founded by medea, when she desired the goddess, as some affirm, to deliver her from loving her husband jason, or, as others say, to free him from loving thetis. the tenor of the epigram follows:- for those who, fighting on their country's side, opposed th' imperial mede's advancing tide, we, votaresses, to cythera pray'd; th' indulgent power vouchsafed her timely aid, and kept the citadel of hellas free from rude assaults of persia's archery. these things he should rather have written and recorded, than have inserted aminocles's killing of his son. after he had abundantly satisfied himself with the accusations brought against themistocles,--of whom he says that, unknown to the other captains, he incessantly robbed and spoiled the islands,--(herodotus, viii. 112.) he at length openly takes away the crown of victory from the athenians, and sets it on the head of the aeginetans, writing thus: "the greeks having sent the first-fruits of their spoils to delphi, asked in general of the god, whether he had a sufficient part of the booty and were contented with it. he answered, that he had enough of all the other greeks, but not of the aeginetans for he expected a donary of them, as having won the greatest honor in the battle at salamis." (ibid. viii. 122.) see here how he attributes not his fictions to the scythians, to the persians, or to the egyptians, as aesop did his to the ravens and apes; but using the very person of the pythian apollo, he takes from athens the chief honor of the battle at salamis. and the second place in honor being given to themistocles at the isthmus by all the other captains,--every one of which attributed to himself the first degree of valor, but give the next to themistocles,--and the judgment not coming to a determination, when he should have reprehended the ambition of the captains, he said, that all the greeks weighed anchor from thence through envy, not being willing to give the chief honor of the victory to themistocles. (ibid. viii. 123, 124.) in his ninth and last book, having nothing left to vent his malice on but the lacedaemonians and their glorious action against the barbarians at plataea, he writes, that the spartans at first feared lest the athenians should suffer themselves to be persuaded by mardonius to forsake the other greeks; but that now, the isthmus being fortified, they, supposing all to be safe at peloponnesus, slighted the rest, feasting and making merry at home, and deluding and delaying the athenian ambassadors. (herodotus, ix. 8. see also viii. 141.) how then did there go forth from sparta to plataea a thousand and five men, having every one of them with him seven helots? or how came it that, exposing themselves to so many dangers, they vanquished and overthrew so many thousand barbarians? hear now his probable cause of it. "it happened," says he, "that there was then at sparta a certain stranger of tegea, named chileus, who had some friends amongst the ephori, between whom and him there was mutual hospitality. he then persuaded them to send forth the army, telling them that the fortification on the isthmus, by which they had fenced in peloponnesus, would be of no avail if the athenians joined themselves with mardonius." (ibid. ix. 9.) this counsel then drew pausanias with his army to plataea; but if any private business had kept that chileus at tegea, greece had never been victorious. again, not knowing what to do with the athenians, he tosses to and fro that city, sometimes extolling it, and sometimes debasing it. he says that, contending for the second place with the tegeatans they made mention of the heraclidae, alleged their acts against the amazons, and the sepulchres of the peloponnesians that died under the walls of cadmea, and at last brought down their discourse to the battle of marathon, saying, however, that they would be satisfied with the command of the left wing. (ibid. ix. 26, 27.) a little after, he says, pausanias and the spartans yielded them the first place, desiring them to fight in the right wing against the persians and give them the left, who excused themselves as not skilled in fighting against the barbarians. (ibid. ix. 46.) now it is a ridiculous thing, to be unwilling to fight against an enemy unless one has been used to him. but he says farther, that the other greeks being led by their captains to encamp in another place, as soon as they were moved, the horse fled with joy towards plataea, and in their flight came as far as juno's temple. (ibid. ix. 52.) in which place indeed he charges them all in general with disobedience, cowardice, and treason. at last he says, that only the lacedaemonians and the tegeates fought with the barbarians, and the athenians with the thebans; equally defrauding all the other cities of their part in the honor of the victory, whilst he affirms that none of them joined in the fight, but that all of them, sitting still hard by in their arms, betrayed and forsook those who fought for them; that the phliasians and megarians indeed, when they heard pausanias had got the better, came in later, and falling on the theban horse, were all cut off; that the corinthians were not at the battle, and that after the victory, by hastening on over the hills, they escaped the theban cavalry. (see the account of the battle of plataea, herodotus, ix, 59-70.) for the thebans, after the barbarians were overthrown, going before with their horse, affectionately assisted them in their flight; to return them thanks (forsooth) for the marks they had stigmatized them with at thermopylae! now what rank the corinthians had in the fight at plataea against the barbarians, and how they performed their duty, you may hear from simonides in these verses: i' th' midst were men, in warlike feats excelling, who ephyre full of springs, inhabited, and who in corinth, glaucus' city, dwelling, great praise by their great valor merited; of which they to perpetuate the fame, to th' gods of well-wrought gold did offerings frame. for he wrote not these things, as one that taught at corinth or that made verses in honor of the city, but only as recording these actions in elegiac verses. but herodotus, whilst he desires to prevent that objection by which those might convince him of lying who should ask, whence then are so many mounts, tombs, and monuments of the dead, at which the plataeans, even to this day, celebrate funeral solemnities in the presence of the greeks?--has charged, unless i am mistaken, a fouler crime than that of treason on their posterity. for these are his words: "as for the other sepulchres that are seen in plataea, i have heard that their successors, being ashamed of their progenitors' absence from this battle, erected every man a monument for posterity's sake." (herodotus, ix. 85.) of this treacherous deserting the battle herodotus was the only man that ever heard. for if any greeks withdrew themselves from the battle, they must have deceived pausanias, aristides, the lacedaemonians, and the athenians. neither yet did the athenians exclude the aeginetans who were their adversaries from the inscription, nor convince the corinthians of having fled from salamis before the victory, greece bearing witness to the contrary. indeed cleadas, a plataean, ten years after the persian war, to gratify, as herodotus says, the aeginetans, erected a mount bearing their name. now came it then to pass that the athenians and lacedaemonians, who were so jealous of each other that they were presently after the war ready to go together by the ears about the setting up a trophy, did not yet repel those greeks who fled in a fear from the battle from having a share in the honor of those that behaved themselves valiantly, but inscribed their names on the trophies and colossuses, and granted them part of the spoils? lastly they set up an altar, on which was engraven this epigram: the greeks, by valor having put to flight the persians and preserved their country's right, erected here this altar which you see, to jove, preserver of their liberty. did cleadas, o herodotus, or some other, write this also, to oblige the cities by flattery? what need had they then to employ fruitless labor in digging up the earth, to make tombs and erect monuments for posterity's sake, when they saw their glory consecrated in the most illustrious and greatest donaries? pausanias, indeed, when he was aspiring to the tyranny, set up this inscription in delphi:- pausanias, of greeks the general when he the medes in fight had overthrown, offered to phoebus a memorial of victory, this monumental stone. in which he gave the glory to the greeks, whose general he professed himself to be. yet the greeks not enduring but utterly misliking it, the lacedaemonians, sending to delphi, caused this to be cut out, and the names of the cities, as it was fit, to be engraven instead of it. now how is it possible that the greeks should have been offended that there was no mention made of them in the inscription, if they had been conscious to themselves of deserting the fight? or that the lacedaemonians would have erased the name of their leader and general, to insert deserters and such as withdrew themselves from the common danger? for it would have been a great indignity, that sophanes, aeimnestus, and all the rest who showed their valor in that fight, should calmly suffer even the cythnians and melians to be inscribed on the trophies; and that herodotus, attributing that fight only to three cities, should raze all the rest out of those and other sacred monuments and donaries. there having been then four fights with the barbarians; he says, that the greeks fled from artemisium; that, whilst their king and general exposed himself to danger at thermopylae, the lacedaemonians sat negligent at home, celebrating the olympian and carnean feasts; and discoursing of the action at salamis, he uses more words about artemisia than he does in his whole narrative of the naval battle. lastly, he says, that the greeks sat still at plataea, knowing no more of the fight, till it was over, than if it had been a skirmish between mice and frogs (like that which pigres, artemisia's fellow countryman, merrily and scoffingly related in a poem), and it had been agreed to fight silently, lest they should be heard by others; and that the lacedaemonians excelled not the barbarians in valor, but only got the better, as fighting against naked and unarmed men. to wit, when xerxes himself was present, the barbarians were with much difficulty compelled by scourges to fight with the greeks; but at plataea, having taken other resolutions, as herodotus says, "they were no way inferior in courage and strength; but their garments being without armor was prejudicial to them, since being naked they fought against a completely armed enemy." what then is there left great and memorable to the grecians of those fights, if the lacedaemonians fought with unarmed men, and the other greeks, though present, were ignorant of the battle; if empty monuments are set up everywhere, and tripods and altars full of lying inscriptions are placed before the gods; if, lastly, herodotus only knows the truth, and all others that give any account of the greeks have been deceived by the fame of those glorious actions, as the effect of an admirable prowess? but he is an acute writer, his style is pleasant, there is a certain grace, force, and elegancy in his narrations; and he has, like a musician, elaborated his discourse, though not knowingly, still clearly and elegantly. these things delight, please, and affect all men. but as in roses we must beware of the venomous flies called cantharides; so must we take heed of the calumnies and envy lying hid under smooth and well-couched phrases and expressions, lest we imprudently entertain absurd and false opinions of the most excellent and greatest cities and men of greece. end of sixteen----------index. abuse of and by one's enemies. achelous, myths of the. achilles, homer's lessons from. achilles's grove. acrotatus, saying of. actaeon, tragic history of. actors, tragic vs. comic. administration, caution about. admonitions, on hearing. adrastea, root of madness. adultery and curiosity compared. advantage from enemies. aeantis, chorus of tribe. aegyptus, nile formerly called. [greek], aemilii, tyrants called. aemilius, paulus. aenianes, the. aeschines the academic, life of; quoted. aeschylus, verses of; quoted; paraphrase of homer by. aesculapius, temple of. aesop, at delphi; at banquet of seven wise men. agasicles, spartan king. agathocles, king of sicily. age, cause of old. aged, the part of the, in state affairs; love of pure wine by; intoxication among the. agenor, grove of. agesilaus, sayings of. agesipolis, son of cleombrotus. agesipolis, son of pausanias. agis, king; example of; story of. agis the younger. air, an element. ajax, parents of; place of soul of. alalcomenae, city called. [greek] alcamenes, son of teleclus. alcibiades, stories about. alcippus, wife and daughters of. alexander the great, sayings and stories of; and timoclea; orations on; remark of theocritus about; diogenes and; in india; as a great drinker. alexander, tyrant of pheraeans. alexandridas, son of laid to. allegory in homer. almonds for drinkers. alpha, position of, in alphabet. alpheus, history of. altar of ashes at olympia. "alter ego" of pythagoras, parallel saying in homer. amasis, herodotus relates a detail concerning. amazonian river. ambassadors, recording names of. ambition, accompaniments of. america, a hint of. ammon, egyptian name for jupiter; temple of. ammonius the philosopher. [greek] amoebus, musician. amphilochus, oracle of. amplification in homer. anatole, mountain. anaxagoras, story of. anaxander, son of eurycrates. anaxarchus. anaxilas, saying of. anchus compared with curtius. ancients, council of. andocides, greek orator. androclidas, saying of. anger, nature of; the restraint of; homer on. animals, human beings born of; self-cures by wild; craftiness of water and of land; amours of, with human beings; reason in; generation of; embryos of; method of nutrition and growth of; appetites and pleasures in; vision of, in the dark. answers to questions. antalcidas, sayings of. anthedon, explanation of. anticyra, cure of madness from. antigonus the first. antigonus the second. antiochus; surnamed the falcon. antiochus hierax. antiochus the third. antipater, nickname of. antiphon, greek orator. antiphrasis in homer. antithesis, homer's use of. ants, intelligence of. apelles and megabyzus. apesantus, mountain. [greek], defined. [greek] aphrodite, epithets of; statue of, at elis; called "fruitful cytherea."; charmed girdle of. aphrodite the murderess, temple of. apis. apollo, place of birth; temple of, at delphi; derivation from [greek] and [greek]; titles of; an oracle delivered by; a flatterer the enemy of; motto in temple of; inventor of music; causes of common diseases are from. apollodorus, painter. apollonius, consolation to, on death of son. apoplexy produced by fumes of lamp-wick. {greek] apostrophe, figure of speech called. apothegms, of kings and great commanders; roman; laconic or spartan; in homer. appetites in animals. apples and apple-trees. araenus, sea shore of. arar, river, derivation of name. aratus, paraphrase of sayings of homer by. archimedes, story of. aregeus, sayings of. ares, varying opinions of. aretaphila, cyrenaean woman. argive women, the. argives, images called; customs of. argyllus, mountain in egypt. aristarchus, arrangement of iliad and odyssey by. aristides the just. aristippus, rebuke of a father by. aristo, punishment of. aristoclia of haliartus. aristodemus, tyrant of cumae. ariston, sayings of. aristophanes, and socrates; comparison between menander and. aristotimus, tyrant of elis; daughters of. aristotle; on talkativeness; on use and abuse of wealth; on music; conception of god; views on indignation and mercy held in common with homer. arithmetic of pythagoras and in homer. arrangement, homer's skill in. arrhippe, virgin ravished by tmolus. artaxerxes longimanus, sayings of. artaxerxes mnemon, sayings of. artemis, temple of, at ehpesus. asbestos produced by ancients. asparagus for brides. ass, connection of typhon with; musical instruments made from bones of. aster, stone called. astronomy, observations concerning; goats show knowledge of; ancient; homer's knowledge of. astycratidas, quoted. asyndeton in homer. ateas, sayings of. atheism and superstition. atheists, beliefs of. athenaeum, mountain. athene chalcioecus, temple of. athenians, decrees proposed to; question of renown of. athenodorus and xeno. atoms the final cause. attalus. attention, directions concerning. augurs, tenure of office of. augustus caesar, in his later years. aurea, cause of the. auspices, prohibition of use of, after august. autoglyphus, stone called. autonamasia in homer. autumn, men's stomachs in; least credit to dreams in. axioms, complications of ten. bacchus, called liber pater; called bull-begot; greek and roman punished by; identity of osiris and; feast of; mithridates called, on account of great drinking; adonis identified with; called the good counsellor; herodotus' estimate of. ballenaeus, mountain. banishment, essay on. banquets, philosophising at; arranging guests at; consular place at; position of director of; suitability of chaplets of flowers at; inviting many guests to; flute-girls at. barbers, talkativeness of. barley, soil for growing. barrenness, in women; of mules. bashfulness. bathing after exercise. baths, hot vs. cold; former compared with present; homer on. bears, paws of, as food. bees, simonides' allusion to; illustrations drawn from; effect of smoke on; tendency of, to sting the impure; craftiness of cretan. beggars' flesh among aenianes. bellerophon, continence of. berecyntus, mountain and priest named. bessus, punishment of. bias, spartan leader. bird or egg, which was first? birds, in soothsaying; wisdom shown by; tree which is a natural snare for. birth, value of good. birthdays of famous men. births, premature. biton and cleobis. boar, characteristics of the. boars, trees, sweet. bodies, division and mixture of. body, definition of a. boeotians, sullenness of. boeotus, son of neptune. bona, temple of. borrowers, treatment of. borrowing money. bottiaean maids. boys, sepulchre of the; love of; herodotus on defiling of. boys' necklaces. brasidas, sayings of; stories of. breathing, theory about. bridal customs, roman. brides, food for. britain, fountain-head of religion; longevity of inhabitants of. brixaba, mountain. bronze, weapons of. broth, lacedaemonian. brotherly love. brothers and sisters, greek and roman parallels concerning. bucephalus, intelligence of. bulimy, greedy disease. bullae, boys' necklaces. bundle of sticks story. burial, among lacedaemonians. bysius, the month. caesar, augustus, sayings of. caesar, julius, stories and sayings of. caicus, river of mysia. callicratidas, spartan admiral. callipides, greek actor. calydon, mountain. camillus, dictator. camma, story of. candles, matter of extinguishing. carbonate of soda, ancient use of. carmenta, temple of. carmina, verses called. cases, changes of, in homer. caspian sea. castor and pollux, statues of; stars called. catechresis in homer. cato the elder, at utica. cats, egyptian views on; the young of; madness of; caused by perfumes. cattle, salt used for. catulus, lutatius. caucasus, mountain, story of. caudine forks, roman hero at. causes, definition and division of. celtic women, the. censors, inauguration ceremonies of. ceres, feast in honour of. chabrias, sayings of. chalcedonian women, custom of. chaldeans, belief of. changes of gender, number, etc., in homer. charila, sacrificial rites of. charillus, king. charon, homer a disciple of. chastity, of animals; herb for protection of. child-birth, effect of moon on. children, time of naming roman; training of; love of only; conception and birth of. chiomara, story of. chios, women of. [greek] christianity, allusions to. chrysermus, history of india by. chrysippus, on various virtues; works of. cicero, sayings of. cios, women of. circe and odysseus. cithaeron, mountain. civil polity, division of, by homer. claudia, virtues of. cleanthes, athenian philosopher. clearchus, tyrant of heraclea. cleomachus the pharsalian. cleombrotus, son of pausanias. cleombrotus the lacedaemonian. cleomenes, quoted. cleomenes, son of anaxandridas. cleomenes, son of cleombrotus. clitoris, stone called. cloelia, roman maiden. clothing of lacedaemonians. clouds, causes of. cnidians, crown of the. coccygium, mountain. cocks, use of, according to chrysippus. coeranus, story of. coins, images on. cold, first principle of; a preserver of health; use of, in homer. coliads, the. colour, defined. colours of early painters. colotes the epicurean. comedy, origin of, with homer. comets, beliefs about. commendation, consideration in. comminius, story of. congelation. conjugal precepts. constancy, crowns of. consualia, feasts called. consular place at table. copiousness, a character of speech. corinthians, hall of the. corruption, are animals obnoxious to? cotys, sayings of. counting, by fives; animals' power of; in homer. cranes, intelligence of; fish compared with. crassus, hay bound about horns of. crater history, vase called. creation of the world. crocodiles, intelligence of; the bird trochilus the friend of; customs of, in breeding. croesus, herodotus on. cronium, mountain. cronos, festivals of. crystallus, river called. cuffing, exercise of. cupping-glasses, phenomenon in. curiosity, essay on. curius, m'., story of. curtius, roman knight. cuttle-fish, sign of storm; cunning of. cybele, worship of. cynic and king anecdote. cyrenaics, temperance of. cyrus, sayings of. cyrus the younger, sayings of. daemon of socrates. daemons, remarks on. damindas, story of. damis, quoted. damonidas, sayings of. dancing, three parts in. darius, sayings of; alexander the great and the corpse of; alexander and the wife of. darkness, visibility of; reason of animals' seeing in. daughters sacrificed by fathers. day, time of beginning. dead, rites of the honoured. death, opinions of; remarks on; sleep before; a good thing; cause of; question of appertaining to soul or body. deaths of sons, cases of. debtors, unfortunate lot of. decrees proposed to athenians. defamation of character, curiosity results in. deity, knowledge of a. demaratus, sayings of. demeter, wanderings of. demetrius, sayings of. demetrius phalereus. demetrius the grammarian. democracy depicted by homer. democritus, attacked by colotes the epicurean; defence of. demosthenes, life of; speech on the crown; parallel passages in homer and. dercyllidas, spartan ambassador. destiny, necessity considered the same as. dexicrcon, venus of. diana, temples of, in rome; priestesses of. diana dictynna. diana orthia, rites of. diatyposis in homer. didymus the cynic, surnamed planetiades. diet of lacedaemonians; in sickness; in health; effect of, on health; variety in; homer's views about. digestion of food. dinarchus, greek orator. diogenes, alexander and; advice of, to boys; soliloquy of; sayings and stories of; melanthius on a tragedy of; eats a raw fish. dion, sayings of. dionysius, tyrant of sicily. dionysius the hydragogue. dionysius the younger; diogenes and. diorphus, mountain. director of a feast. discourse, separating the useful part of a. diseases, causes of new. divination, art of; homer's knowledge of. dog, locrians' wooden; worship of, by egyptians; power of mimicry in a. dogs, set before lares; sacrifice of, to mana geneta; sacrifice of, in lupercal games; stone-chasing of; intelligence shown by. dolphin, tribute to the. domitius, cneus. "do not overdo," saying. [greek] defined. dreams, origin of. drimylus, mountain. drinkers, certain great. "drink five or three, but not four," saying. drinking, references to, in the iliad. drugs in homer. druidical students. drunkenness, talkativeness and; of old men as compared with old women; partial compared with total. earth, an element; nature and magnitude of the; figure, site and position, motion, and zones of. see world. earthquakes, cause of. ease of mind; in exile. echo, production of an. eclipse, cause of; shadow in an, in proportion to moon's diameter; of sun; of moon. eclipses in homer. education of children. {greek] egypt, kings of. egyptian gods and myths; legend about love. ei the word, on apollo's temple at delphi. elaeus, founding of. elaphebolia, festival of. elasii. element, difference between principle and. elements, nature viewed as the mixture and separation of the; of members of human body; and principles. elephant, amour of an, with alexandrian maid. elephantiasis. elephants, intelligence of; excelled by fishes. elephas, mountain. eleutheria, origin of festival of. ellipse, a figure of speech. embryo, nature of human; of animals. emetics, use of. emmets, intelligence of. empedocles, quoted; strictures of colotes against; defence of. emphasis, trope called. emprepes, story of. enmities accompany friendship. enmity, advantage and profit from. envy, follows ability; an enemy to peace of mind; and hatred; praising one's self without exciting; in hearers; the aged most free from attacks proceeding from; of statesmen. epaenetus, on liars. epaminoxidas, stories of. epicaste. epicureans, theories of. epicurus, the doctrine of; admits it is pleasanter to do than receive a kindness; views on the deity; colotes, disciple of, confuted; followers of, distinguished by inactivity in public matters. epidamnians, poletes among. epigrams in homer. epilepsy, "sacred disease,". epiphonesis in homer. epitaphs, uselessness of. epithets in homer. eretria, women of. eryxo. [greek] euboidas, saying of. eudaemonidas, quoted. eudamidas, son of archidamus. eumenes; and attalus. eunostus, hero of tanagra. euphranor, painter. euphrates, myths of the. euripides, quoted; on banishment; on god; paraphrase of homer by. eurotas, river. eurycratidas, son of anaxandridas. euthynous the italian. evenus, quotation from. exercise, importance of; homer's acquaintance with value of. exercises, homer's order of. exordiums, homer's. fabius, friend of augustus caesar. fabius maximus, heroic act of. fabricius, c., and pyrrhus. face in the moon. failing sickness. false modesty. fancy, defined. "fast from evil," saying. fasting, practice of; thirst from. fate, necessity considered the same as; the nature of; essay concerning; pertains to mind of god; homer's views of. fates, province of the. fathers, and daughters, certain greek and roman cases of; advice to; love of, for daughters. fear, and superstition; homer on. feast of fools. feasts. see banquets. february, derivation of. fever, cause and nature of. fig-leaf as an omen. fig-trees, fruit of. figures, definition of. figures of speech, homer's. fire, compared with water as to usefulness; an element. fish, abstention from eating; cunning of; kind of, called remora or echeneis; eating of, forbidden by pythagoreans. fish-lines, horses' hair for. fish-nets, rotting of. five, significance of number; the number dedicated by the wise men. five elements in the world. five gods of rhea. fives, counting by. five senses, the. five wise men. flamen dialis, question concerning; rules for. flaminian way. flattery vs. friendship. flesh, of sacrificed beasts; the eating of. flowers, chaplets of, worn at table. flute, mentioned by homer. flute-girls at feasts. flute-music. flutes from asses' bones. "follow god," saying. food, superstitions about; choice of; digestion of; from the sea vs. food from land. see diet. fortuna primigenia, worship of. fortune, temples of; of the romans; essay on; various opinions of. four, the number, venerated by pythagoreans. four species of animals. fox, cunning of the. freedom of speech, ill-advised. friends, folly of seeking many; discerning flatterers from. friendship, a dual relation; enmities an accompaniment of; constancy a requisite in. frogs, breeding of. frost, hunting impeded by. frozen speech. fruit, salt lacking in. funeral customs in homer. funeral rites, roman. furciferi. g, the letter, introduction of. galatia, heroines of. galaxy, or milky way. galba and maecenas. ganges, river, story of. gardens of adonis. garlands, of oaken leaves; in games. garlic, scruples concerning. garrulity. gauran, mountain. geese, sacred. gelo, sayings of. genders, change of, in homer. generation, extent of a. generation, and corruption; of human beings; ancient theories of; of animals; of gods. generative seed. geneta, dogs sacrificed to. geniuses and heroes. geometer, god as a. gifts, bridal. gnome, defined; homer's use of. gnossians, customs among. god, the tutelary, of rome; existence and essence of a; what is?; immortality and eternity of; platonic conception of; homer's conception. gods, ancients' conception of; generation of; homer's belief in; piety toward, taught by homer. gold, scarcity of, in ancient times. gracefulness, a character of speech. grafting of trees. great trench, battle of the. greedy disease. greek questions. grief, advice concerning; exhibitions of; homer on. grief-easing stone. guests, at wedding suppers; entertainment of many, at a supper; that are called shadows; who come late. see also banquets. gymnastics in homer. haemus, mountain. hail, why round. halcyon, virtues of the. halinda, plant called. halo, cause of the. hamaxocylists, race of. hannibal, fabius maximus and; and the women of salmantica. happiness, true seat of. harmony, in music. harp-music. harps, at entertainments. hart, tears of, salt. hatred, envy and. hay-making, prayers for. head, covering and uncovering the. health, estimates of; rules for preservation of; preservers of. hearing, essay concerning; cause of sense of. heart, seat of the emotions according to stoics, following homer. heat, a first principle; causes premature old age; of women; homer's appreciation of. heaven, nature end essence of; circles or division of. hebrus river. hedge-hogs, cunning of; sea hedge-hogs. hegesippus, quoted. helicon, story of. hens, impregnation of, by the wind. hera as goddess of marriage. heraclides, wrestler, a great drinker. herbs growing in certain rivers and mountains. hercules, payment of tithes to; swearing by; and the muses, altar common to; sacrifices to; greek and roman stories of; herodotus' estimate of. herodotus, on modesty of women; criticism of. heroes, beliefs concerning; of homer. heroic metre in homer. herondas, saying of. hesiod, on gods, daemons, heroes, and men; quoted; on begetting children; on receiving gifts of fortune. hiero, sayings of. hippocratidas. hippodamus, spartan commander. hippolytus, story of. hippothorus, tune called. histriones, players called. hogs, jews' antipathy toward. homer, on prophets; gives name of friendship to sexual love; quoted; on bravery; unmetrical line of; on man's wretched lot; on modesty; on advantages of music; order of different kinds of exercises according to; on intercourse between men and their wives; calls salt divine; epithets applied to liquids by; a moot point in third book of iliad; essay on life and poetry of; biographical sketch of; the two works of; metre and dialects used by; epithets used by; tropes found in; figures of speech in; various styles used by; on constitution of the universe; natural philosophy of; on god and the gods; on the human soul; places emotions about the heart; on virtue and vice; mention of arithmetic and music in; philosophies which found their origin with; sayings of, paraphrased by later writers; rhetorical art of; types represented in his speakers; knowledge of laws; civil polity in; experience of, in warlike affairs; heroes described by; knowledge of medicine, diet, wine, surgery, etc.; of divination and omens; of tragedy and comedy; mastery of word-painting. homoioptelon in homer. homoioteleuton, homer's use of. honor, the god so called. honor to parents, in homer. horatius and horatia, and greek parallel. horse, cure of a stumbling. horse-races, rites of. horses called [greek]. horta, temple of. hostages, roman virgins as. hunger, causes of; allayed by drinking. hurricanes, causes of. hybristica, rites of. hydaspes, river. hyperbole in homer. hyperides, greek orator. hysteropotmi. ibis, worship of the; use of physic by; figure of, first letter in egyptian alphabet. ibycus, story of murderers of. icarius, story of. icebergs, tradition of. ichneumon, armor of the; outmatched by the trochilus. ida, mount. idathyrsus, sayings of. ideas, defined. idleness, a gentlemanly crime; and health. idola of democritus originate with homer. imagination, defined. immortality of the soul. impotency in men. inachus, river. incense used by egyptians. inclination of the world. incongruous, a figure of speech. india, river and mountain of; alexaiider the great in. indus, story of the. ino. inquisitiveness. intemperance in eating. intercourse between men and their wives. interpreters of oracles. intoxication, signs of. see drunkenness. introductions, homer's. ion the poet, cited. iphicrates, sayings of. ireland, mention of. iris-struck trees. irony, use of, in homer. isaeus, greek orator. isis and osiris, essay on. imnenus, river. isocrates, greek orator. isosceles triangles. isthmian games, crowns at. ivy, beliefs concerning; consecrated to bacchus and to osirls; the nature of. january as the first month. janus, double-faced god; image of, on coins. jealousy. see envy. jesting at an entertainment. jews, allusion to; spartans of same stock as the; effect of superstition on; abstention of, from swine's flesh; customs of; god worshipped by. jocasta, death of. journeys, days for beginning. juno, roman beliefs about; nuptial ceremonies connected with. jupiter, priests of; conception of year belonging to; rules or priests of; statue of, in caria. see zeus. justice, ancients' conception of. jus trium liberorum. [greek], cretans called. kingly rule, homer's praise of. kissing, custom of. "know thyself," delphic motto; to be observed by censorious persons. [greek] and [greek]. [greek]. [greek]. l, the letter, pronounced r. labotus, saying of. labradean jupiter, statue of. lacedaemonians, laws and customs of. lais, famous courtesan. lamachus, story of. lamp, the unextinguishable. lamps, putting out of. lampsace. language, care of the. sea speech. lanthorns of priests. lares, customs concerning. "larks must have their crests," greek proverb. laurentia, worship of. law, power of, over kings; homer's knowledge of the word. leaena, greek heroine. leisure, healthful use of. lemnos, women of. leo, son of eucratidas. leonidas, hero of therinopylae. leotychidas, son of aristo. leotychidas the first. leprosy, from drinking swine's milk; from dewy trees; stone which cures. letters, avoidance of haste in opening; of alphabet. "let this be ratified," saying. leucophyllus, reed with white leaf. leucothea, festivals of. liars, a saying about. libertinism and liberty. libitina. licinius, publius. lictors, derivation of name. lightning, theories concerning. lilaeus, mountain. lion, tracks of the. lions, cunning of. liquids, in one's diet; epithets of; passage of, through the lungs. "live unknown," precept. loadstone, the. lochagus, quoted. locrians, information about the. love, tragical histories of; festival to god of; essay on; brotherly; men made poets by. lovers of boys. lucar, derivation of. lucullus. lugdunum, mountain and city. lungs, passage of drink through. lupercal plays. lutatius catulus. lute, invention of. lycia, women of. lycormas, river. lycurgus, life of; teaches brevity and terseness. lydian mood in music. lyre, playing on the; mention of, by homer. lysander, lacedaemonian general; stories and sayings of. lysias, greek orator. macellum, market called. madness, anger and; root and plant for causing and curing. maeander, river. magpie, story of a. manlius, m. mare, child horn of a. marius, c.; and sylla. marriage customs, roman. marriage of kindred. mars, greek and roman parallels concerning. marsyas, phrygian river. matter, defined; motion and. "matters of concern to-morrow,". matuta, temple of; festivals of. maximus, fabius, stories of. may, roman marriages forbidden during. meals, latin and greek names of. meat, the eating of; putrefaction of, by moon. medicine, homer's familiarity with. medietics, harmonical and arithmetical. megisto, and aristotimus. melian women, the. memnon, sayings of. memory, cultivating the. men, impotency in. menander, quoted; comparison between aristophanes and. mercury, statue of, among the graces; statues of. metageitnia, festival. metaphor in homer. metellus, caecillus. metellus nepos. meteors resembling rods. metonymy in homer. micca, story of. midas fountain of. milesian women. milky way. mills grinding, listeners to. minerals, ancient production of. minerva, priestess of. minerva of the brazen house. minerva the artisan and minerva the protectress of cities. minstrels, women's dress worn by. mirror, comparison of wife and. mirrors, rusting of; of the ancients; the working of. miscarriage, herb for causing. mithridates, and the woman of pergamus; a great drinker. mixarchagetas. mnemosyne, mother of muses. mob rule in homer. modesty, the vice of false; of women. monarchy, democracy, and oligarchy compared. monophagi, the, in aegina. monstrosities, birth of. month, relation between juno and the. months, order of; beginnings and periods of. moon, relation of juno to; the face in the; influence of, on tides; and styx; essence, size, figure, light of, etc.; putrefaction of flesh exposed to. moons on shoes. moon-worship. moral virtue. mothers, love of, for sons. motion, defined; of the soul. mountains, names of, and details concerning. mourning, white, for women. mucius scaevola. mule, an intelligent; fable of, laden with salt; barrenness of the. mullets, beliefs regarding. muses, derivation of name; observation about the number of. mushrooms, produced by thunder. music, lacedaemonian; essay concerning; effect of, on various animals; pleasures arising from bad; kind of, fittest for entertainments; as mentioned in homer. musicians, ancient. must, effect of cold on. mutation, a figure of speech. mutilations of mourners. mycenae, mountain. myenus, mountain of aetolia. myops, magic herb. myronides. myrrh used for incense. namertes, remark of. naming roman children. narrative style found in homer. natural philosophy; of homer. natural questions. nature, sentiments concerning; what is? necessity, philosophers on. necklaces called bullae. nestor and odysseus in homer. nicander, sayings of. xicostratus, saying of. niger and the fish-bone. night, the time for thought; called the good adviser; noises better heard in, than in day. nile, river; the over-flowing of the; use of water of, for drinking. nine, most perfect number. "no," courage to say. noisy-with-the-pen, nickname bestowed on antipater. nome, derivation of. north pole, homer's and plutarch's knowledge of. "nothing too much," inscribed in temple of apollo; in homer. "not so had" philosophy. nouns and verbs, speech composed of. numa, reign of. number, the perfect; change of, in homer. numbers, superstitions concerning; in procreation of the soul; pythagorean view of nature of; triangular; science of, in pythagoras and in homer. nursing of children. nutrition and growth of animals. nymphs, life of. oak, garlands of leaves of; "darkness at the oak,". oaths, by hercules; forbidden to priests. ochimus. ocresia, roman virgin. ocridion, temple of. octaves in music. odd and even numbers in homer. odysseus, circe and; self-control of; homer's meaning in. offspring, affection for one's. ogyian isle (ireland). oil, poured on the sea; cause of transparency of; considered as purely liquid. old men, council of. see aged. oligarchy depicted by homer. olympus, inventor of grecian and nomic music. onesicratus. onions for lung disease. onobatis, woman called. onomatopoeia in homer. oracles, essay on the cessation of. oracular responses. orations, political. orators, lives of the ten. oratory, extempore and studied. orestes, story of, and roman parallel. orontes, sayings of. orpheus, thrown into the hebrus. oryx, fables of the. [greek] osiris, isis and; birth of; death of; derivation of name. otus, method of capturing the. outspokenness, false and true. overeating. overturners of wagons. ox, sacrifice of, by pyrrhias; in egyptian sacrifices; and the camel. oxen, hay bound about horns of; counting by. oxyrhyncus, worship of the. pactolus, river of lydia. paedaretus, anecdote of; sayings of. painting, defined as silent poetry; homer a master in painting by words. palaestinus, river, and son of neptune. palillogia, homer's use of. [greek], defined. palladium, greek and roman parallels relating to. palm, garlands of, given in games. palms, growth of, increased by weights laid on them. pan, spania derived from. panaema, derivation of. pangaeus, mountain. panthoidas, sayings of. parallels drawn between greek and roman history. paranomasia in homer. paraphrases of homer by later writers. parembole, a figure of speech. parents, advice to; honor to, shown in homer. parison, a figure of speech. parmenides, on love; an epicurean's attack on; defence of. parsley, crowns of. partridges, cunning of. parysatis, sayings of. passions of the body. pater patratus. patres conscripti distinguished from patres. patricians prohibited to dwell about capitol. pausanias, son of cleombrotus. pausanias, son of plistonanax. pausanias and cleonice. peace of mind; in exile. pedagogues, choice of. see tutors. pedetes, andron in samos called. peeping girl, the. pergamus, the woman of. pericles, sayings of. peripatetics and homer. periphrasis in homer. persian women, the. [greek], defined. phallus, festival of the. phantom, defined. phasis, river. philadelphi, stones called. philip of macedon and arcadio the achaean. philosophers, conversation of; reasonings of, originate with homer. philosophizing at table. philosophy, defined; difficulties in, may be overcome. phocion the athenian. phocis, women of. phocus, daughter of. phoebidas, quoted. phryne the courtesan. phryxa, herb called. phylacteries of the jews. physics, use of; animals' use of. phyxemelum, defined. pieria. piety toward the gods taught by homer. pinarii, the. pindar, elegy of. pine, garlands of. pipe, mentioned by homer; made from asses' bones. pipe-music at entertainments. pisistratus, tyrant of athens. pittacus, philosophy of. place, definition of. planets, musical proportions in distances between. see astronomy. plants, with special properties; method of increase of. plato, on music; on procreation of the soul; on music of the spheres; on an oracle delivered by apollo; on fatigue as the enemy of learning; quoted; reproof of socrates by; praise of concise speaking by; on the immortality of the soul; knowledge of music shown by; on god; statement of, that drink passes through the lungs; birthday of; chrysippus' works against; colotes' criticisms of; defence of. platonic questions. platychaetas. pleonasm in homer. plistarchus, son of leonidas. plistoanax, son of pausanias. ploiades, clouds called. poetry, lacedaemonian; rank of music and; and love; parts common to dancing and; of homer; how a young man ought to hear. poets, greater improbabilities spoken by stoics than by; prize for, at games. poletes, among epidamnians. political precepts. polity, civil, in homer. poltys, sayings of. polycratidas. polycrita. polydorus. polypus, the; change of color of. pompeius, cn. pontius, c., roman hero. polpilius. porsena and the roman maidens. porus. posidonius, school of. postumia, vestal virgin. poverty and wealth. praise of one's self. praising, directions concerning; care to be observed in. priest of hercules at cos. priests, customs of roman. prince, discourse to an unlearned. principle, difference between element and. principles, four first; defined. prinistum, founding of. proanaphonesis in homer. procreation, of the soul; of children. prometheus, fate of, and herb named for. prosopopoiia, homer's use of. providence, and fate; pertains to mind of god; homer's views of. ptolemies, the, and flatterers; titles of the. ptolemy, son of lagus. publius decius, case of, and greek parallel. pulse, abstention from; use of, by the trallians. punishing, god's delay in. putrefaction of flesh. pyrrhus the epirot, surnamed the eagle; c. fabricius and. pythagoras, discourages cruelty to animals; judgment of music by; on principles and elements; conception of god; symbols and superstitions of; doctrines of, which originated with homer; parallel sayings of homer and. pythagoreans, beliefs about eating. pytheas, story of. pythes, the wife of. pythia, death of. pythian responses. quarry of asbestos. quaternary of pythagoreans. questions, answers to; the asking of; for discussion at table. quickness effected by ellipsis in homer. quince, to be eaten by brides. quinctius, t., stories of. quintessence, the, of the aristote1ians. quirinalia, the feast of fools. quiritis and quirinus. raillery at an entertainment. rainbow, cause of. rains, generation of, known to homer. razor, mentioned by homer. reading by old men. reason, paralyzed by fear. recapitulation, homer's use of. red sea, woods and plants in. regression, a figure of speech. relation, a figure of speech. reproofs, on bearing. resin used for incense. respiration, voice and; cause of. restraint, a character of speech. rex sacrorum, king of priests. rhea, myth relating to; five gods of. rhetoric, homer a master of. rhodope, the courtesan; mountain. riches, remarks on. rivers and their characteristics. rods and axes carried before officers. rogue town, philip's. roman apothegms. roman questions. romans, the fortune of the. romulus and remus; greek parallel. roundelay, terpander invents. roxana. rules of health. rumina, sacrifices to. runners-to-supper. rusticus, anecdote of. sacred geese, the. sacrifices, of human beings by romans; the result of superstition; flesh of. sagaris, river of phrygia. sailing, rate of, in winter. st. elmo's fire. salmantica, women of. salt, egyptian beliefs concerning; use of, for cattle; reasons for lack of, in fruit; held in honor. sambicus, sufferings of. same and other, plato's. samian customs. sarcasm, use of, in homer. sardians, sale of. saturn, the father of truth; temple of, as treasury and office of record; star of the jews. saturnalia. savings, remarkable; in homer. scamander, river in boeotia. scape-goat, ceremony of, among egyptians. scedasus, daughters of. scilurus, sayings of. scipio the elder. scipio junior, sayings of. scolding, fault of. sea, less salt in winter; water of, poured upon wine; waves of, heated by motion; calming the, by pouring on oil; composition and other qualities of: food from the, vs. food from land. sea-sickness, degrees of. sea-water and trees. secret, keeping a. seed, generative. self-control. self-praise. semiramis, monument of. senses, definition, objects, number, action of, etc. septimontium, festival called. serapis, egyptian name for pluto. serpent, amour of a. servants' holiday, origin of. servius, roman king. seventeen, superstition concerning the number. seven wise men, banquet of the. sexes, generation of the different. shadows, guests called. sheep, qualities of flesh of, when bitten by wolves. shetland islands. ships, sterns and stems on coins. shyness, an excess of modesty. sickness, causes of. sight, herb for curing weak; cause of; of old men; process of. silence, advantages of, contrasted with talkativeness; an answer to wise men. simonides, quotation from. sinister, birds called, in soothsaying. sipylus, mountain of asia. sirens, music of the. skeleton at the feast. slave, an obedient but stupid. slaves, feast-day of roman; blinding of. sleep, and death; eating ore; cause of; question of, appertaining to soul or body; homer's valuation of. small fortune, temple of. smelling, means of. sneezing, the daemon of socrates. snoring as a good omen in homer. snow, generation of; preservation of. soap, natron the ancient substitute for. sober-stone, the. socrates, the daemon of; on training of children; on the seat of true happiness; quoted; conception of god; birthday of; colotes' criticisms of; defence of; "a midwife to others, himself not generating,". solon, precept of; and croesus; on virtue and wealth. solstice, winter and summer. sons, conspicuous examples of deaths of. soos, story of. soothsaying, birds for; in homer. sophocles, quotation from; paraphrase of homer by. sorrow, advice on; exhibitions of. soul, essay on procreation of; passions of, vs. disorders of body; nature, essence, parts, motion of, etc.; means by which sensible, and principal part of; sympathy of, with passions of the body; plato's reasoning concerning; immortality of, according to pythagoras, plato, and homer; transmigration of the; homer's treatment of powers and passions of. sounds, heard better in the night than in the day; harmonizing of. sows, farrowing of. space, theories of. sparta, customs in. spartans, sayings of the; remarkable speeches of some obscure. speech, ill-advised freedom of; control of one's; of statesmen; value of, to the health; composed of nouns and verbs, according to plato. sperm, constitution of. spermatic emission of women. spiders, as an omen; skill of. spies, unpopularity resulting from. spoils of war, fate of. spurius, significance of name, and reason. stars, egyptian beliefs concerning the; essence and composition; form of; order and place; motion and circulation, whence their light, and other qualities; circles about. statesmen, may praise themselves. stealing, among lacedaemonians. stepmother, flower which dies at name of; the herb phryxa a protection against. steward at banquets. stilpo, and poseidon; references to; attacked by colotes. stoics, views of god; improbabilities spoken by; common conceptions against; contradictions of the; origin of doctrines of, with homer. stones with special properties. stories of rivers and mountains. stratonica, galatian woman. strymon, river of thrace. style, types of, in homer. summer, cause of; stoics' view of. sun, titles of the; beliefs concerning the; homer's opinions about; identification of apollo with. sun and wind, fable of. sun-worship. superstition, essay on. surgery in homer. swallows, nests of; superstitions about. swine as an unholy animal. sword-blades, cold-hammered. sycophant, derivation of. sylia the fortunate; marius's treatment of. syllables, number of, possible to make. symposiacs. synecdoche in homer. table customs, roman; greek, see banquets. table-talk (symposiacs). tactics, homer's knowledge of. tagyrae, oracle at. talkativeness, essay on. tanais, river of scythia. tarpeia, roman traitress, and greek parallel. taste, cause of. taygetus, mountain. taylor, jeremy, a borrower from plutarch. tears of boar and hart. teleclus, king. telecrus, sayings of. telesilla, poetess. temper, governing the. see anger. temperance, wisdom of. temples, in rome; traitors walled up in. tenes, temple of. tenses in homer. teres, saying of. terminus, the god. terpander, lacedaemonian musician. teuthras, mountain. thalassius, name sung at nuptials. thales the milesian; conception of god. theagenes, theban hero. theano, wife of pythagoras. thearidas, saying of. thectamenes. themisteas the prophet. themistocles. theocritus, unlucky remarks of; paraphrase of homer by. theodorus of soli, quoted. theogony, the ancient. theopompus; quoted. theoretic style in homer. theoxenia, festival called. thermodon river of scythia. theseus and pirithous. thespesius, story of. thessaly, enchantments of. thiasi, sacrifice called. thirst, causes of; increased by eating. thorycion. "thou art" and "know thyself,". three accords between wine and water. three elements necessary for moral excellence. three parts in dancing. thunder, theories about. thunder-showers, water of. tiberius and flatterer. tides, cause of. tigris, myths of the. timaeus, on the procreation of the soul; atlantic by, cited. time, defined; substance and nature of. timoelea. timotheus; sayings of. timoxena, daughter of plutarch, death of. tmolus, mountain, story of. tobacco, use of, hinted. togas without tunics for candidates for office. torches at nuptials. torture, inventors of engines of, rewarded. tracking wild beasts. tragedy, origin of, with homer. training of children. traitors, parallel cases of greek and roman. tranquillity of mind. transmigration of the soul. trees, sea-water and; thrive better with rain than with watering; grafting of fir, pine, etc.; so-called iris-struck. triangle, revered by egyptians. triangles, plato's theories about. tribune of the people. tropes in homer. troy, women of. truce from words, pythagoras'. truthfulness, honorableness of, shown in homer. tutors, qualifications of; responsibilities of. twins and triplets, causes of. typhon, legends of. tyranny depicted by homer. tyrrhene women, the. ulysses, and the coliads; temple of, in lacedaemon; and circe. see odysseus. unhappiness caused by vice. union results in strength. universe, theories of the government of the; conceptions of the; principles and elements of; question as to whether it is one ++++++++last page of index missing+++++++++ 