Dialogues of the Dead

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 494 sections

6.4.8
However, I should like to see him, if he’s around.
6.4.9
Do you see the bald one?
6.4.10
They’re all bald; that distinguishing feature would apply to them all.
6.4.11
I mean the one with the snub nose.
6.4.12
This too they have in common; they’re all snub-nosed.
6.5.1
Looking for me, Menippus?
6.5.2
Yes, I am, Socrates.
6.5.3
What’s the news in Athens?
6.5.4
Many of the young men call themselves Philosophers, and, to judge at least from their garb and gait, are tiptop Philosophers.
6.5.5
I’ve seen lots of them.
6.5.6
But you’ve seen, I imagine, what Aristippus was like when he came to join you, or Plato himself—the one reeking of scent, the other accomplished in flattering Sicilian tyrants.
6.5.7
And what do they think of me?
6.5.8
In these respects at least, you’re a lucky fellow, Socrates. At any rate they all think you were a wonderful man, and knew everything, though—I think I’m right in saying so—you knew nothing.
6.5.9
That’s what I myself kept telling them, but they thought it was all pretence on my part.
6.6.1
But who are these round you?
6.6.2
Charmides, my good fellow, and Phaedrus and Clinias’ son.
6.6.3
Bravo, Socrates! Still following your own special line here! Still with an eye for beauty!
6.6.4
What could I find to do more agreeable? But won’t you lie down by us, please?
6.6.5
Oh, no; I’m going off to Croesus and Sardanapalus, to stay near them. I expect to have plenty of fun hearing their lamentations.
6.6.6
I’m off now, too, to see that none of the dead gives us the slip and escapes. You’ll see things in full another time, Menippus.
6.6.7
Off with you, Aeacus. What I’ve seen is enough.
7.1.1
Why are you crying, Tantalus? Why do you stand beside the lake lamenting your lot?
7.1.2
Because, Menippus, I’m dying of thirst.
7.1.3
Are you too lazy to bend your head down and drink, or even, bless us, to scoop the water up with your palm?
7.1.4
It’s no good bending down; the water runs away as soon as it feels me coming near, and, if ever I do scoop up any, and bring it to my mouth, I can’t wet the tip of my lips before it runs through my fingers somehow and leaves my hand dry as before.
7.1.5
You’re the victim of a miracle, Tantalus. But tell me, just why do you need to drink? You have no body, for that’s been buried in Lydia. That could feel hunger and thirst. But you are a ghost; how can you still be thirsty or able to drink?
7.1.6
It’s just that that’s my punishment—that my ghost should be thirsty as if it were a body.
7.2.1
Well, we’ll believe it, since you tell us you’re punished by thirst. But what do you find so terrible in that? Are you afraid of dying for lack of drink? I can’t see another Hades after this one, or a death hereafter taking us elsewhere.
7.2.2
You are quite right; but this is part of my sentence—to long to drink when I’ve no need.
7.2.3
Nonsense, Tantalus: I think you really do need a drink—neat hellebore, so help me; you’re the opposite of people bitten by mad dogs; you don’t fear water, but you do fear thirst.
7.2.4
I don’t mind drinking even hellebore—I only wish I could have some.
7.2.5
Don’t worry, Tantalus, for neither you nor any other dead man will drink; that’s impossible. However, they’ve not all been condemned to thirst, as you do, for water which won’t wait for them.
8.1.1
I heard, Chiron, that though you were a god, you wanted to die.
8.1.2
What you heard is true, Menippus, and I am dead, as you see, though I could have been immortal.
8.1.3
Whatever made you so enamoured of death, a thing for which most men have no love?
8.1.4
I’ll tell you, seeing that you’re an intelligent fellow. I had no pleasure left in enjoying immortality.
8.1.5
Was it not pleasant to live and see the light?
8.1.6
No, Menippus. I consider pleasure to come from variety and change; but I was living on and on, and enjoying the same things—sun, light and food; the seasons were always the same, and everything came in its turn, one thing seeming to follow automatically upon another; and so I had too much of it all, for I found my pleasure not in always having the same thing, but also in doing quite without it.
8.1.7
Well spoken, Chiron. But how do you endure things in Hades, now that you’ve come down here out of preference?
8.2.1
I find them not unpleasant, Menippus. The equality here is truly democratic, and it makes no difference whether one is in light or in darkness. Besides, there’s no need to be thirsty or hungry, as up above; we don’t feel any of these needs.
8.2.2
Take care you don’t trip yourself up, Chiron, and have to use the same theory again.
8.2.3
What do you mean?
8.2.4
That if you became sick and tired of the constant monotony and sameness of things in life, things here too are monotonous; and so you may become just as sick and tired of them, and have to look for a change from here to yet another life—and that, I think, is impossible.
8.2.5
Then what can one do, Menippus?
8.2.6
What I imagine a sensible man is reputed to do—be content and satisfied with one’s lot and think no part of it intolerable.
9.1.1
It’s difficult to tell now, Tiresias, whether you’re blind, as our eyes are all alike—empty, with nothing but sockets. Indeed, you can no longer tell which was Phineus, or which was Lynceus. But I do know you were a prophet, and the only person to have been both man and woman. I heard that from the poets. So, for heaven’s sake, tell me which life you found more pleasant—when you were a man, or a woman?
9.1.2
The woman’s life, Menippus, by a long way. It has fewer worries, and women have the mastery over men, and don’t have to fight in wars, or stand on the battlements, or argue in parliament, or be crossexamined in court.
9.2.1
Then you haven’t heard, Tiresias, what Euripides’ Medea said about women’s pitiable plight in having an unhappy lot, and having to endure intolerable suffering in childbirth? But tell me, now that I’m reminded of it by Medea’s lines from the play, did you ever have any children, when you were a woman, or did you remain barren and childless in that life?
9.2.2
Why do you ask that, Menippus?
9.2.3
It’s an easy enough question, Tiresias. Just answer, if it’s not too difficult.
9.2.4
I wasn’t barren, but I didn’t have any children.
9.2.5
That will suffice; I wanted to know if you had a womb.
9.2.6
Of course I did.
9.2.7
And in time your womb gradually disappeared, the woman’s place sealed up, your breasts subsided, you grew a male organ and produced a beard? Or was your change from woman to man sudden?
9.2.8
I don’t understand the object of your question, but it seems to me you don’t believe things happened like that.
9.2.9
Why shouldn’t I disbelieve such a story, Tiresias, rather than accept it like a dolt without examining whether its possible or not?
9.3.1
Then you don’t believe any of the other stories either, when you hear of women changing into birds or trees or beasts, as, for example, Aedon, or Daphne, or the daughter of Lycaon?
9.3.2
If I ever come across them, I’ll learn what they have to say. But when you were a woman, good sir, were you a prophet then too, just as later, or did you learn to be man and prophet at the same time?
9.3.3
You see, you know nothing about me, or how I settled a quarrel of the gods, and Hera blinded me, and Zeus consoled me in my misfortune with the gift of prophecy.
9.3.4
So you still keep to your falsehoods, Tiresias? That’s just like you prophets; you’re habitual liars.
10.1.1
And yet the pair of you, Trophonius and Amphilochus, though shades, have somehow or other been thought worthy of temples, and are considered prophets, and empty-headed men have taken you for gods!
10.1.2
Well, how is that our fault, if they are so silly as to think such things about Dead Men?
10.1.3
They would never have done so but for all your mysterious talk in your lifetime, and your pretence of knowing the future and foretelling it to anyone who asked.
10.1.4
My good Menippus, Amphilochus here will know what answer to give on his own behalf, but, as for me, I am a hero and prophesy if anyone comes down to me. But I don’t think you’ve visited Lebadea at all, or you wouldn’t be so sceptical.
10.2.1
What’s that? Must I go to Lebadea, and make a fool of myself wearing linen and carrying a pancake in my hands, and crawl into your cave through that passage that’s so low, in order to be able to tell that you’re dead just like us, surpassing us only in your false pretences? But, in the name of prophecy, what is a hero? I don’t know.
10.2.2
A compound of god and man.
10.2.3
Something neither man nor god, you mean, but both at once? Well then, where has your divine half gone at present?
10.2.4
It’s prophesying, Menippus, in Boeotia.
10.2.5
I don’t know what you mean, Trophonius; but I can see quite clearly that all of you is dead.
11.1.1
Isn’t that Heracles? No one else, by Heracles! Bow, club, lionskin, bulk—Heracles from head to toe. Is he dead, then, though a son of Zeus? Tell me, conquering hero, are you a shade? I used to sacrifice to you on earth above, thinking you a god.
11.1.2
And quite right too. The real Heracles is in heaven with the gods, and “hath beauteous-ankled Hebe for his wife”; I am his wraith.
11.1.3
What do you mean? The god’s wraith? Is it possible for anyone to be half god, and half dead?
11.1.4
Yes, for Heracles is not dead, but only I his likeness.
11.2.1
I understand. He has given you to Pluto in his own place as a substitute, and you are now dead instead of him.
11.2.2
Something like that.
11.2.3
But Aeacus is very exact. How did he fail to spot that you were a fraud? How did he accept a changeling Heracles whom he saw face to face?
11.2.4
Because I was exactly like him.
11.2.5
Very true; an exact likeness indeed; you might be the fellow himself. But perhaps it’s the other way round, and you are Heracles, and the wraith has married Hebe in heaven.
11.3.1
What impudence! You talk too much. If you don’t stop these gibes at me, I’ll soon show you what sort of god has me for a wraith.
11.3.2
The bow is out and ready. But why should I fear you now? I’ve died once and for all. But please tell me, in the name of your Heracles; when he was alive, were you with him then too, as his wraith? Or were you both one during his lifetime, but split up when you died, Heracles flying off to heaven, while you, his wraith, came here to Hades, as was only right?
11.3.3
One who makes it his business to poke fun doesn’t so much as deserve a reply. However, I’ll let you have one more answer. All of Amphitryon that was in Heracles is dead, and I am all that part; but the part that came from Zeus is in heaven living with the gods.
11.4.1
Now I understand perfectly. Alcmena, you mean, bore two Heracleses at the same time, one by Amphitryon, the other from Zeus, and so you were twin sons of the same mother—though nobody knew about it?
11.4.2
No, you fool. We were both the same person.
11.4.3
That’s difficult to understand, two Heracleses in a compound, unless you were man and god fused together, like horse and man in a Centaur.
11.4.4
Well, don’t you think everyone is compounded of two parts, soul and body? What then prevents the soul, the part which came from Zeus, from being in heaven, and me, the mortal part, from being with the dead?
11.5.1
But, most excellent son of Amphitryon, you would be right enough, if you were a body, but in fact you are a bodiless wraith. So it looks as if you’re now making Heracles triple.
11.5.2
How triple?
11.5.3
Like this. If there’s one of him in heaven, and one here with us (that’s you the wraith), and there’s his body on Oeta, now dust, he’s now become three. You’d better start thinking what third father you’ll invent for your body.
11.5.4
You’re an impudent quibbler. Who the blazes are you?
11.5.5
I’m the wraith of Diogenes of Sinope, but Diogenes himself isn’t “among the gods that know not death”, no indeed, but in the company of the finest of the ghosts, laughing at Homer and nonsensical stories like this.
12.1.1
You can’t deny being my son now, Alexander; you wouldn’t be dead, if you were the son of Ammon.
12.1.2
I knew quite well myself, father, that I was the son of Philip, the son of Amyntas, but I accepted the oracle, because I thought it useful for my purposes.
12.1.3
What! Useful to allow yourself to be cheated by the prophets?
12.1.4
Not that, but the barbarians were terrified of me, and nobody resisted me any more; they thought they were fighting against a god, so that I conquered them the more easily.
12.2.1
What enemies did you conquer that were worth fighting? Your adversaries were always cowards, and armed with nothing better than bows and bucklers and wicker shields. But conquering Greeks, conquering Boeotians, Phocians and Athenians was a real task, and subduing Arcadian heavy troops, Thessalian horse, javelin men of Elis, and light troops from Mantinea, or Thracians, Illyrians or Paeonians was a great achievement. But as for Medes, Persians and Chaldaeans, effeminate creatures bedecked in gold—you weren’t the first to conquer them. Don’t you know how Clearchus did so, going inland with a mere ten thousand men, and they didn’t even wait to fight at close quarters, but fled before they were in bow-shot?
12.3.1
But, father, the Scythians and the elephants of the Indians are not to be despised, and yet I won my victories over them without sowing dissension, or using bribery and treachery. I never went back on an oath or a promise, or broke faith to gain a victory, and, though I took over most of the Greeks without bloodshed, perhaps you’ve heard how I punished the Thebans.
12.3.2
I know all that; I was told by Clitus, whom you killed at dinner, by running him through with a spear, because he dared to praise me rather than your achievements.
12.4.1
Furthermore, you discarded the Macedonian cloak, they tell me, for a Median doublet, and took to a tiara worn upright on your head, and expected Macedonians, free men, to bow down before you. And, most ridiculous thing of all, you aped the habits of your defeated foes! I won’t mention your other activities—how you locked up educated men along with lions, all your weddings, and your inordinate affection for Hephaestion. I’ve only heard of one thing I can praise; you kept your attentions away from Darius’ beautiful queen, and looked after his mother and his daughters. That was conduct befitting a king.
12.5.1
Don’t you praise me for my adventurous spirit, father, and for being first man to leap into the fort of the Oxydracae, and for receiving so many wounds?
12.5.2
I don’t. Not that I think it’s a bad thing for a king to suffer an occasional wound and to face dangers at the head of his army; but that wasn’t at all the sort of thing for you. For you were supposed to be a god, and any time you were wounded and seen being carried out of the fighting on a litter, streaming with blood and groaning from your wound, the onlookers were amused to see how Ammon was being shown up as an impostor whose forecasts were false, and his prophets as mere flatterers. Who wouldn’t have been amused to see the son of Zeus fainting and calling for the assistance of the doctors? For now that you’re dead, don’t you think that there are many who wax witty about that pretence of yours, now that they see the corpse of the “god ‘” lying at full length, clammy and swollen like any other body? Besides, this policy, which you said was so useful, Alexander, the policy of gaining easy victories in this way, greatly diminished the glory of your successes. For everything seemed disappointing, when regarded as the work of a god.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0062.tlg066.perseus-eng3. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.