Menippus. However, point me out Helene: for I could not distinguish her. Hermes. That skull is Helene. Menippus. Then, on account of this, those thousand ships were equipped from the whole of Hellas, and so many Hellenes and foreigners fell, and so many cities have become ruins! Hermes. But you never saw the lady alive, Menippus ; for even you would have acknowledged it was not a matter to excite indignation that they : "For such a woman many a year choose bitter woe to suffer." 1 For, in fact, if one looks at withered flowers, when they have lost their brilliant colour, it is plain that they will seem to him to have lost all their beauty. While, however, they are in bloom and retain their colour, they are very beautiful. Menippus. 'Tis this, however, I wonder at, Hermes,that the Achæans did not know they were suffering for a thing so shortlived and quickly fading. Hermes. I have no leisure, Menippus, to engage in a philosophical chat with you. So do you choose out for yourself a spot, wherever you like, and throw yourself down and there lie; while I shall straightway go and look after the rest of the dead men. 1 Τοιῇδ ̓ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν. A quotation of 'IX. iii. 157, where unwilling admiration is excited in the aged Priam and Trojan chiefs (as they watch the causa teterrima belli from the walls of the city), who exclaim :— Οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ εὐκνημῖδας ̓Αχαιοὺς Τοιῇδ' ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν See the remarks of Quintilian, De Inst. Orat. viii. 4: "Quænam igitur illa forma credenda est? Non enim hoc dicit Paris, qui rapuit, non aliquis juvenis, non unus e vulgo; sed senes et prudentissimi et Priamo assidentes," &c. For an enumeration of the lovers of Helen, see Apollodorus, iii. 10. The sum-total amounts to no less than twenty-eight. XIX. PROTESILAUS, ONE OF THE VICTIMS OF THE TROJAN WAR, SEEKS TO AVENGE HIMSELF BY AN ASSAULT ON HELENE-EAKUS, GATEKEEPER AND ONE OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN HADES, REMINDS HIM THAT IT IS MENELAUS, THE COMMANDERIN-CHIEF OF THE ACHEAN ARMY AGAINST ILIUM, WHO IS THE PROPER OBJECT OF HIS VENGEANCE. MENELAUS SHIFTS THE RESPONSIBILITY TO THE SHOULDERS OF PARIS. PARIS LAYS THE BLAME UPON EROS. EAKUS DECIDES THAT PROTESILAUS HAS ONLY HIMSELF TO BLAME FOR PREFERRING MILITARY GLORY TO A YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL WIFE; BUT CONCEDES TO PROTESILAUS THAT THE BLAME, IN THE LAST RESORT, LIES WITH THE FATES. Eakus, Protesilaus,' Menelaus, and Paris. Eakus. Why are you falling upon Helen, and throttling her, Protesilaus ? Protesilaus. Why? Because it was through her I met with my death, Æakus, leaving behind me my house halffinished, and my newly-married wife a widow. Eakus. Blame Menelaus, then, who led you to Troy, for the sake of such a woman. Protesilaus. You are right. It's he I have to call to account. Menelaus. No, not me, my fine sir, but Paris more likely, who, contrary to every principle of justice, ran off with the wife of his host-myself. Why, this fellow deserves to be throttled not by you only but by all Hellenes and foreigners, seeing he has been the cause of death to such numbers. Protesilaus. Better so. Never, therefore, I assure you, A prince of Thessaly who led a number of confederated Thessalian tribes to Ilium. First to leap out of his ship on to the enemy's coast, he was the first slain of the Achæans. The story of the devotion of his wife, Laodameia, is well known. Cf. 'IX. ii. 698-703; Ov. Laodameia Protesilao; Catullus, Ad Manlium, 70-108 : "Quo tibi tum casu, pulcherrima Laodameia, 1 will I let you out of my hands, "ill-fated Paris," (taking him by the throat). Paris. Then you do an injustice, Protesilaus, and that, too, to your fellow-craftsman. For I myself, also, am a devotee of Eros, and am held fast prisoner by the same divinity. And you know how involuntary a sort of thing is love, and how a certain divinity drives us wherever he wishes, and it is impossible to resist him. Protesilaus. You are right. Would therefore it were possible for me to get hold of Eros here! Eakus. I will maintain the cause even of Eros against Why, he would himself acknowledge that, likely enough, he was the cause, as regards Paris, of his falling in love; but that of your death, Protesilaus, no one else was the cause but yourself, who, entirely forgetful of your newly-married wife, when you brought your ships up at the Troad, so rashly and foolhardily leapt out before the rest, enamoured of glory; on account of which you were the first, in the disembarkation, to die. Protesilaus. Then, I shall, in defence of myself, make a still juster reply to you, Æakus. You will confess it, for it is not I am responsible for all this, but Destiny, and the fact that my thread of life was so spun2 from the first. Eakus. Rightly, too. Why, then, do you blame them? 1 A parody of 'IX. iii. 39, where Hektor taunts his brother with his cowardice: : Δύσπαρι, εἶδος ἄριστε, γυναιμανές, ἠπεροπευτὰ, κ. τ. λ. imitated by Ovid (according to the revision of Heinsius) Dyspari Priamide, damno formose tuorum." Laod. Prot. 43. Euripides uses a similar amalgam in Avoɛλévav ("ill-fated Helene"). Ορέστης, 1391. 2 'ETTIKEк\wσlai. Namely, by Klotho, the one of the three sisters whose province it is to spin out the fated life of man. See Hesiod. Oɛoy. 905-910, and Lucian, Κατάπλους ἤ Τύραννος. XX. EAKUS, AT THE ESPECIAL REQUEST OF MENIPPUS, INTRODUCES HIM TO THE GHOSTS OF THE MOST CELEBRATED POTENTATES OF ANTIQUITY, WHEN THE CYNIC AVAILS HIMSELF OF HIS OPPORTUNITY FOR RIDICULE AND DERISION. MENIPPUS IS NEXT INTRODUCED TO THE MOST FAMOUS PHILOSOPHERS, WHOM HE TREATS WITH NOT MUCH GREATER CONSIDERATION. THE DIALOGUE CONCLUDES WITH THE INTERVIEW WITH SOKRATES, WHOSE FOIBLES, REAL OR PRETENDED, ARE MADE THE SUBJECT OF SATIRE. Menippus and Eakus.' Menippus. In the name of Pluto, akus, be my chaperon, and conduct me round all the sights of Hades. Eakus. No easy thing, Menippus, to do everything. As regards, however, the principal sights, learn as follows:that this creature here is Kerberus you are aware; and this ferryman, who conveyed you across, and the lake, and Pyriphlegethon, you have seen but now at your entering Menippus. I know all that, and you, that you are the gate-keeper, and I saw the king, and the Erinyes: 3 but point 3 1 Jacobs (ap. Porson, Adversaria) thinks this Dialogue to be not worthy of the genius of Lucian. But, as Lehmann justly remarks, although it has some parts not so highly finished as is usual with Lucian, " omnino tamen ubivis spirat aura Luciani.” 2 The "flaming" river, or lake, surrounding Hades. The other infernal streams are the Acheron (the joyless river), the Kokytus (the river of wailing), and the Styx (the hateful river). See that eloquent repertory of fantastic superstition or imagination, the Phædon-to which the Christian Inferno and, in particular, that of Dante is indebted. According to Plato, Acheron and the Acherusian lake, the pagan Purgatorio, await those "too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell," who, after expiating their offences, receive the reward of their good deeds. Into "Tartarus horriferos eructans faucibus æstus," the worst criminals are thrown headlong, to endure everlasting fire and tortures. Cf. En. vi., Georgica, ii. 490-492; Lucretius, De Rer. Nat. iii. 3 The avenging divinities, the Latin Furie, in Hellenic euphemism usually known as the Eumenides (the "kindly disposed "). The triad is found first in Euripides. The individual names Alekto, Megæra, out to me the men of old times, and especially those of them who are famous. Eakus. This is Agamemnon, and this Achilleus, and this Idomeneus close by, and this Odysseus; next are Aias and Diomedes, and the most valiant of the Hellenes. Menippus. Bah! Homer, what creatures are the principal ornaments of your rhapsodies, that are tossed about on the ground, shapeless, mere dust all of them, and empty trumpery, in very truth "fleeting forms!" And this fellow, Eakus, who is he? Eakus. It is Cyrus, and this Kroesus, and the one above him Sardanapalus, and the one above them Midas; and he here is Xerxes. Menippus (to Xerxes). Then, vile refuse, it was at your bridging the Hellespont that Hellas shuddered, and at your ambition to sail through the mountains? 2 And what a and Tisiphone appear first in the Hellenic theological writers of late times. In the Evμevides of Eschylus, their number is unlimited. 1 Cf. Aristoph. 'Opvílɛg, in the magnificent choral parabasis : Moschus: Εύδομες εὖ μάλα μάκρον ἄτερμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον. Juvenal, Sat. x. 172: "Mors sola fatetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula," &c. : 2 Menippus alludes to the canal across the Macedonian peninsula of Chalkidike (of which Mount Athos is the Southern extremity) formed by order of Xerxes, to avoid the dangerous passage round that cape. The canal, of which traces are visible, had a length of one and a-half miles. Juvenal, who, in common with many ancient and modern writers, was incredulous, thus refers to it : "Creditur olim Sat. x. 174-177. Some one hundred and fifty years later a yet more ambitious, and much less praiseworthy, work was proposed by an architect in Alexander of Macedon's train-the transformation of Mount Athos into a gigantic statue of that conqueror, holding in one hand a city of 10,000 inhabitants, and in the other a river. See Plutarch, Bíoι Пap. 'Aλɛ. |