over the men, and they are not forced to go to fight in war, or to stand sentinel at the battlements, or to wrangle in parliament, or to be cross-examined in law courts. Menippus. Have you not heard, Teiresias, the Medeia of Euripides, how she pities the female sex, in her speech, as wretched, and having to undergo certain intolerable pangs -those of childbirth ? 1 But tell me-for the iambics of Medeia remind me of it-did you ever have a child, when you were a woman, or did you continue barren and unfruitful in that state of life? Teiresias. Why do you ask that, Menippus ? Menippus. No offence intended, Teiresias; but answer me, if it is agreeable to you. Teiresias. I was not barren, and yet I did not have a child at all. Menippus. That's quite enough. If you had a womb, in fact I wished to know that. Teiresias. Of course I had. Menippus. And was it in course of time that it disappeared, and the sexual part was obstructed, and your breasts were removed, and the manly parts sprang into existence, and you grew a beard; or did you immediately from being a woman turn out a man? Teiresias. I don't see what your question means exactly. The forsaken wife of Iason thus expresses the unhappy condition of her sex : Γυναῖκες ἔσμεν ἀθλιώτατον φυτόν· But you appear to me, however, to doubt that these things were so. Menippus. Why, is not one allowed to have any sort of doubt in these cases, Teiresias; but, like some simpleton who doesn't inquire into the truth, must one receive them as gospel, whether they are possible or not? Teiresias. Do you not, pray, believe other things to have so happened as they are related—when, for example, you hear that certain persons have been changed from women into birds, or trees, or quadrupeds; into Philomela,1 or Daphne, or the daughter of Lycaon? Menippus. If ever I come across them, I shall know-what they say. But you, my fine Sir, when you were a woman, did you play the prophet then, as afterwards, or did you learn to be man and prophet at the same time? Teiresias. Just see. You are ignorant of everything that concerns me how I put an end to a certain quarrel among the gods, and how Hera blinded me, in consequence; and how Zeus consoled me for my misfortune by the gift of prophecy.2 Menippus. Do you still stick to your lies, Teiresias ? However, you do so quite in prophetic style; for it is the custom of you people to say nothing rational or true.3 For the tragic and frightful story of Philomela (from which Shakspere, or whoever was the author, derived the idea of the tragedy of Titus Andronicus), see Ov. Met. vi. 424-676. For Daphne, Met. vi. 205, and e. A. ii., xv. For the daughter of Lycaon (the impious king who served up human flesh to Zeus during his wanderings in Arkadia), Callisto, see Met. ii. 496. 2 See Ov. Met. iii. 333-338: gravius Saturnia facto, Nec pro materiâ fertur doluisse; suique Judicis æterna damnavit lumina nocte, etc. Cf. Aristoph. 'Oovilec, 960-991; Juv. vi. 512-591; Apul. De Aur. Asino; Lucian, 'AXėžavòpos, Niypivos, etc. XXIX. AGAMEMNON INQUIRES OF (TELAMONIAN) AIAS THE REASON OF HIS LATE COOL RECEPTION OF ODYSSEUS, WHEN HE CAME DOWN TO LEARN THE FUTURE FROM TEIRESIAS. AIAS JUSTIFIES HIS HOSTILE FEELING BY ALLEGING THE CONDUCT OF ODYSSEUS TO HIM, IN THE MATTER OF THE COMPETITION FOR THE ARMS OF ACHILLEUS. Aias and Agamemnon.1 Agamemnon. If you in a fit of madness, Aias, killed yourself, and intended also to murder us all, why do you blame Odysseus; and, the day before yesterday, why did you not even look at him, when he came to consult the oracle, or deign to address a word to your old comrade and companion, but haughtily passed him by with huge strides ? 2 Aias. With good reason, Agamemnon; for he was the actual and sole cause of my madness, seeing that he put himself in competition with me for the arms. Agamemnon. And did you consider it your right to be unopposed, and to lord it over all without the toil of contest? Aias. Yes, indeed, in such respect; for the suit of armour was my own, as it was my uncle's.3 Indeed, you others, though far superior to him, declined the contest for yourselves, and yielded the prize to me; whereas the son of Laertes, whom I often saved, when in imminent peril of being cut to pieces by the Phrygians, set himself up to be my superior, and to be more worthy to receive the arms. Agamemnon. Blame Thetis, then, my admirable Sir, who, though she should have delivered over the heritage of 1 Cf. 'Od. 542-563; Soph. Aĩaç, 1355; Ov. Met. xiii. 1-398, where, at the close of the lengthy harangues of the rival competitors, Odysseus prevails, "fortisque viri tulit arma disertus." 2 The Homeric phrase-paкpà Bißác. the arms to you as her relative, took and deposited them for general competition. Aias. No, but Odysseus, who was the only one to put himself forward as claimant. Agamemnon. It is excusable, if, human as he was, he had great longing after glory, a very pleasant acquisition, for the sake of which every one of us, also, underwent dangers; seeing, too, he conquered you, and that before Trojan judges. Aias. I know what Goddess gave sentence against me: but it is not allowed one to say anything true regarding the divinities. But as for your Odysseus, however, I could not by any means cease from hating him, Agamemnon; not even if Athena herself should enjoin it upon me.1 XXX. SOSTRATUS, FOR HIS CRIMES, ABOUT TO BE CONSIGNED BY MINOS TO THE TORTURES OF TARTARUS, PROTESTS AGAINST THE INJUSTICE OF HIS SENTENCE; SINCE, UPON THE ADMISSIONS OF HIS JUDGE HIMSELF, HE HAD BEEN A MERE INSTRUMENT IN THE HANDS OF FATE. MINOS, MOVED BY THE PLAUSIBILITY OF HIS PLEA, REPRIEVES HIM. Minos and Sostratus. Minos. Let this brigand Sostratus be cast into Pyriphlegethon, and let the sacrilegious rascal be torn piecemeal by our Chimæra; and, as for this tyrant, let him be ex Athena had favoured the pretensions of her protégé. Her interposition at a still more critical juncture, between the two principal Achæan chiefs, quarrelling for the captive girls, Briseis and Chryseis, may be seen in 'IX. i. 193-222. 2 Of this follower of Prokrustes, nothing more is known than his name. Lucian (as remarked by Du Soul), from a passage in his Anuwvat seems to have written his life, and, in the 'Aλɛžávdpus, he is numbered among the worst criminals. 3 This divine monster, who has given to the modern languages a word expressive of the fabulous or impossible, was a composition of lion, goat, and dragon or serpent, as described in 'IX. vi. 180-183 :— posed, Hermes, side by side with Tityos,' and have his liver gnawed, too, by the vultures. But as for you good people depart with all speed to the Elysian field, and inhabit the Islands of the Blessed,' in recompense for your just actions in life. Sostratus. Hear me a moment, Minos, and judge whether I appear to you to say what is just. Minos. Must I listen to you again? Why, have you not been out-and-out convicted, Sostratus, of being a bad man, and of having murdered a number of people? but con Sostratus. I have been condemned, it is true; sider whether I shall be, in fact, justly punished. Minos. Very certainly you will be; if, at least, it is just to suffer merited punishment. ἡ δ ̓ ἄρ ̓ ἔην θεῖον γένος, οὐδ ̓ ἀνθρώπων Πρόσθε λέων, όπιθεν δὲ δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα, Hesiod makes her still more formidable by giving her, like Kerberus, three heads. Oɛoy. 319-325. The fire-breathing monster, we are informed by that poet, was killed by Bellerophon and Pegasus. It was thenceforth settled (according to Virgil, En. vi. 288) at the entrance to Orcus, the most dreaded of the infernal terrors. So Ov. Tristia, iv. 7. Cf. Lucretius, De Rer. Nat. v. 904-906. Tityos, one of the chief criminals in Tartarus, was the gigantic son of Zeus or of Gaia, and had his habitation in the island of Euboea. It was an attempted outrage on Leto, or her daughter Artemis, which entailed upon him his tremendous penalty in Tartarus, where, like Milton's Satan, he lay "stretched out huge in length" : : Viscera præbebat Tityos lanianda, novemque Jugeribus distentus erat. (Ov. Met. iv. 456.) Cf. Lucretius, iii. 984-994; Virg. Æn. vi. 595; Statius, Thebais i. Apollod. i. 4. 1. 2 For a description of the Homeric Paradise, see 'Od. iv. 565-570:Τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν· Οὐ νιφετὸς οὔτ ̓ ἄρ χειμὼν πολὺς, οὔτε πότ ̓ ὄμβρος, κ. τ. λ. Cf. Hesiod, 'Ep. xai 'Hμ, 170-174; Pindar, 'OX. ii. 109:— See En. vi. 743; Ov. Amor. ii. 6, 49-58; Plato, paidwv; Lucian, Περὶ Θυσίων; ̓Αλήθ. ̔Ιστ. ii., and a charming description in an epigram in the Anthologia Græca, addressed to Пpwrn :— Οὐκ ἔθανες, Πρώτη, μετέβης δ ̓ ἐς ἀμείνονα χῶρον, κ. τ. λ. |