assured, and will flee from you, and you will have made your long journey to the upper world to no purpose. Persephone. Do you all the same, my husband, set that right, and direct Hermes, as soon as ever Protesilaus is in daylight, to touch him with his caduceus,' and make him a handsome youth again, such as he was when he came out from the nuptial chamber. Pluto (to Hermes). Since it's Persephone's pleasure, conduct this man to the upper regions, and just make him a bridegroom again.—(To Protesilaus.) And do you remember you have got only one day. XXIV. IDOGENES DEMANDS OF MAUSOLUS, THE KARIAN SATRAP, THE REASON OF HIS ARROGANCE AND PRIDE, AND RIDICULES THE VANITY OF HIS GRANDEUR AND POWER ON EARTH, AND, IN PARTICULAR, THE USELESSNESS TO HIM OF HIS MAGNIFICENT TOMB AT HALIKARNASSUS. HE CONCLUDES HIS DIATRIBE WITH CONTRASTING HIS OWN COMPLETE IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE IN REGARD EVEN TO THE MANNER, OR PLACE, OF HIS OWN SEPULTURE. Diogenes and Mausolus.2 Diogenes. For what reason are you so high and mighty, and claim to have precedence of us all in honour, Karian? Mausolus. Indeed, by reason of my kingdom, O Sinopian-seeing I was king of all Karia, and ruled over some 1 For the magic property of the paßdoç, see O. A. vii. 2 Mausolus was Satrap of Karia, on the S.W. of the Lesser Asia, under the Persian monarch Artaxerxes the Second, or Mnemon (as he was called by the Greeks). With other Satraps he revolted, and established himself as an independent prince-377-353 B.C. At his death, his sister and wife Artemisia, who succeeded him, built the splendid monument which has given its name to succeeding edifices of the kind— none of which in the Western world have any title to rivalry with it. For a description, see Pliny, Hist. Nat. iv. 36. More justly than were most of the others, it was reckoned among the "seven wonders." In modern times, however, in the Eastern world the tomb of Mausolus has been surpassed by that paragon of architectural beauty, the Taj Mahal at Agra. of the Lydians, also, and subjugated to my dominion several islands, and advanced as far as Miletus, overrunning the greater part of Ionia. And I was handsome and great, and strenuous in wars. But, what is greatest reason of all, is that I possess in Halikarnassus a very great monument lying over me, of dimensions such as no other dead man has; nay, nor one so elaborately beautified-horses and men having been copied with the greatest accuracy in the most beautiful marble-of such sort as one could not easily find even a temple. Seem I not to you justly to be high and mighty on those grounds ? Diogenes. On account of your kingdom, you say, and your handsome appearance, and the weight of your tomb ? Mausolus. Assuredly, on those grounds. Diogenes. But, my handsome Mausolus, neither that power of yours nor your figure any longer pertains to you. If, however, we should choose some judge of good looks, I am unable to say why your skull should be preferred to mine; for both are bald and bare, and we display our teeth with equal prominence, we are both deprived of our eyes, and have been both provided with snub-noses. And as for your tomb, and those costly marbles, they, perhaps, may be of use to the good people of Halikarnassus, to show off for their own benefit and to get honour for themselves from strangers and visitors as having, no doubt, a certain big building. But as for you, my fine Sir, I don't see what benefit you derive from it, unless you affirm this-that you bear a heavier burden than we, inasmuch as you are weighed down by such huge stones. 1 Mausolus. Will all those things, then, be of no advantage to me, and will Mausolus and Diogenes have an equality of privilege? Diogenes. Not an equality of privilege, most excellent Sir, certainly not. For Mausolus will groan and lament, in remembering his possessions above ground, in which he used to imagine himself to be happy, while Diogenes will laugh at him. And as for the tomb at Halikarnassus-he 1 I ei μ. "Lucian himself has animadverted upon this expression in his Solæcistes; for correct writers wrote πλὴν εἰ, or εἰ μὴ. But Lucian has often not attended to his own rule."-Hemst. 1 will call it his own, though it was constructed by his wife and sister Artemisia; whereas Diogenes does not know whether even he has any tomb for his carcass; for he did not even bestow a thought about it; but he has left behind, for the best part of mankind, the memory of himself as of a man, who has lived a life much more sublime than your monument, greatest of Karian slaves, and built on a firmer foundation. XXV. NIREUS AND THERSITES, DISPUTING WHICH OF THEM WAS THE MORE DISTINGUISHED BY GOOD LOOKS, APPEAL TO MENIPPUS. MENIPPUS, DISREGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF HOMER, PRONOUNCES THE ἰσοκάλλος AS WELL AS ΤΗΕ ἰσοτιμία, IN HADES, TO BE AS COMPLETE AS IT IS UNALTERABLE. Nireus, Thersites, and Menippus. Nireus. See, I say, Menippus here shall judge which of the two is more shapely.-Say, Menippus, don't I seem to you the better-looking? Menippus. But who are you, really? For it is first necessary, I suppose, that I know that. Nireus. Nireus and Thersites. Menippus. Which, pray, is Nireus, and which Thersites? For that's not clear as yet. Thersites. This one point in my favour I have alreadythat I am like you, and that you by no means are so far 1 See N. A. i. His master Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic School, displayed equal indifference to the rites of sepulture. 2 For Nireus, see N. A. xviii. The agreeable picture of this representative demagogue, Thersites, painted by the poet of the Iliad, is well known: αἴσχιστος δὲ ἀνὴρ ὑπὸ Ιλιον ἦλθε Φολκὸς ἔην, χωλὸς δ ̓ ἕτερον πόδα· τὼ δὲ ὤμω See 'AX. 'IoT., where Thersites brings an action (ypan üßpɛwc) against the poet for calumny, before the Court of Rhadamanthys, and gains his case (ii. 280). superior as Homer, that blind fellow, commends you for being, when he calls you a finer man than the rest of us; whereas I, the peak-headed and almost bald-pated individual, did not appear at all inferior in the eyes of our judge.—But do you see, Menippus, whom you consider really the finer gentleman ? Nireus. Me, to be sure, the son of Aglaia and Charops, "Of all the Danai 'neath Ilion who mustered, The man of fairest form." 1 Menippus. You, by no means, however, came below ground very much like a beau, as I imagine; on the contrary, your bones were all much alike, and your skull could be distinguished, I suppose, from that of Thersites in this respect only that yours is easily smashed; for it is a brittle and no virile one you have. Nireus. Indeed, ask Homer what I was like when I was campaigning with the Achæans. Menippus. Mere dreams: I see, however, what beauties you have just now, and as for those former graces of yours, the people of those times know all about that. Nireus. Have I, then, here no superiority in good looks, Menippus ? Menippus. Neither you, nor anyone else, have any pretensions to good looks; for perfect equality prevails in Hades, and all are alike. Thersites. For me, I assure you, that is quite enough. Cf. Eneis, vii. 649, of the Son of Mezentius. Nireus and Thersites became a sort of proverb for masculine beauty and ugliness. Plato, in his representation of the various choices made by human souls, for their second lives, makes Thersites adopt that of an ape.—IIćλ. x. ad finem. XXVI. CHEIRON IMPARTS TO MENIPPUS HIS REASON FOR PREFERRING HADES TO HEAVEN AND IMMORTALITY. Menippus and Cheiron.1 Menippus. I heard, Cheiron, that though divine, you had a great desire to die. Cheiron. You heard quite right, Menippus; and I have died, as you see, when I might have been immortal. Menippus. Pray, what love of death possessed you, a thing undesired by most people? Cheiron. I will tell you, as you are not altogether without sense. I had no longer any pleasure to get from immortality. Menippus. It was no pleasure to you to live and see the light of day? 2 Cheiron. No, Menippus, for I, for my part, hold pleasure to be something which is variable, and not simple. But I was always living and in the enjoyment of the same things -sun, light, food; and there were the same seasons, and everything happened, each in its own order, following, as it were, one after the other-I became, therefore, satiated with them for my pleasure was dependent not on its permanence, but on the not being constantly participant in it.3 1 The most famous of the Kentaurs, and instructor of Peleus, Achilleus, and other heroes. He met his death by an accident, at the hand of Herakles. As the son of Cronos, he was immortal; but, preferring death, Zeus permitted him to transfer his deathlessness to Prometheus. See Apollod. ii. v. &c.; Hyginus; Ov. Met. ii. 2 "No longer to behold the light,” to the Hellene, and, in particular, to the Athenian, living under pure, translucent skies, and physically and mentally sensitive in a high degree to the enjoyments of life, was the one great cause of regret at the moment of death-as depicted by their tragic dramatists. See, especially, Euripides, 'Ipıyevɛía ¿v Avλ., 1359-1362. Ἰὼ, ἰὼ, λαμπαδοῦχας άμερα, Cf. the exquisite lines in the Cenci of Shelley (v. 4). 3 Le Clerc supposes Lucian to have derived this philosophy of Pleasure from the 'Yoẞoxiμaios of Menander, who, in his turn, was indebted to Alexis. The fragment has been preserved by Stobæus. For iv TŸ μɛtаoxεiv ows, Lehmann would read, with other MSS., μɛraßaλɛîv—“ in constant change." |