Dialogues of the Dead

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 495 sections

23.3.3
Husband, doctor that disease yourself: tell Hermes, as soon as Protesilaus reaches the light, to touch him with his wand, and make him young and fair as when he left the bridal chamber.
23.3.4
Well, I cannot refuse a lady. Hermes, take him up and turn him into a bridegroom. But mind, you sir, a strictly temporary one,
24.1.1
Why so proud, Carian? How are you better than the rest of us?
24.1.2
Sinopean, to begin with, I was a king; king of all Caria, ruler of many Lydians, subduer of islands, conqueror of well-nigh the whole of Ionia, even to the borders of Miletus. Further, I was comely, and of noble stature, and a mighty warrior. Finally, a vast tomb lies over me in Halicarnassus, of such dimensions, of such exquisite beauty as no other shade can boast. Thereon are the perfect semblances of man and horse, carved in the fairest marble; scarcely may a temple be found to match it. These are the grounds of my pride: are they inadequate?
24.2.1
Kingship—beauty—heavy tomb; is that it?
24.2.2
It is as you say.
24.2.3
But, my handsome Mausolus, the power and the beauty are no longer there. If we were to appoint an umpire now on the question of comeliness, I see no reason why he should prefer your skull to mine. Both are bald, and bare of flesh; our teeth are equally in evidence; each of us has lost his eyes, and each is snub-nosed. Then as to the tomb and the costly marbles, I dare say such a fine erection gives the Halicarnassians something to brag about and show off to strangers: but I don’t see, friend, that you are the better for it, unless it is that you claim to carry more weight than the rest of us, with all that marble on the top of you.
24.3.1
Then all is to go for nothing? Mausolus and Diogenes are to rank as equals?
24.3.2
Equals! My dear sir, no; I don’t say that. While Mausolus is groaning over the memories of earth, and the felicity which he supposed to be his, Diogenes will be chuckling. While Mausolus boasts of the tomb raised to him by Artemisia, his wife and sister, Diogenes knows not whether he has a tomb or no—the question never having occurred to him; he knows only that his name is on the tongues of the wise, as one who lived the life of a man; a higher monument than yours, vile Carian slave, and set on firmer foundations,
25.1.1
Here we are; Menippus shall award the palm of beauty, Menippus, am I not better-looking than he?
25.1.2
Well, who are you? I must know that first, mustn’t I?
25.1.3
Nireus and Thersites.
25.1.4
Which is which? I cannot tell that yet.
25.1.5
One to me; I am like you; you have no such superiority as Homer (blind, by the way) gave you when he called you the handsomest of men; he might peak my head and thin my hair, our judge finds me none the worse. Now, Menippus, make up your mind which is handsomer.
25.1.6
I, of course, I, the son of Aglaia and Charopus, Comeliest of all that came ’neath Trojan walls.
25.2.1
But not comeliest of all that come ’neath the earth, as far as I know. Your bones are much like other people’s; and the only difference between your two skulls is that yours would not take much to stove it in. It is a tender article, something short of masculine,
25.2.2
Ask Homer what I was, when I sailed with the Achaeans.
25.2.3
Dreams, dreams, I am looking at what you are; what you were is ancient history.
25.2.4
Am I not handsomer here, Menippus?
25.2.5
You are not handsome at all, nor any one else either. Hades is a democracy; one man is as good as another here.
25.2.6
And a very tolerable arrangement too, if you ask me.
26.1.1
I have heard that you were a god, Chiron, and that you died of your own choice?
26.1.2
You were rightly informed. I am dead, as you see, and might have been immortal.
26.1.3
And what should possess you, to be in love with Death? He has no charm for most people.
26.1.4
You are a sensible fellow; I will tell you. There was no further satisfaction to be had from immortality.
26.1.5
Was it not a pleasure merely to live and see the light?
26.1.6
No; it is variety, as I take it, and not monotony, that constitutes pleasure. Living on and on, everything always the same; sun, light, food, spring, summer, autumn, winter, one thing following another in unending sequence,—I sickened of it all. I found that enjoyment lay not in continual possession; that deprivation had its share therein.
26.1.7
Very true, Chiron. And how have you got on since you made Hades your home?
26.2.1
Not unpleasantly. I like the truly republican equality that prevails; and as to whether one is in light or darkness, that makes no difference at all, Then again there is no hunger or thirst here; one is independent of such things.
26.2.2
Take care, Chiron! You may be caught in the snare of your own reasonings.
26.2.3
How should that be?
26.2.4
Why, if the monotony of the other world brought on satiety, the monotony here may do the same. You will have to look about for a further change, and I fancy there is no third life procurable.
26.2.5
Then what is to be done, Menippus?
26.2.6
Take things as you find them, I suppose, like a sensible fellow, and make the best of everything.
27.1.1
Now, friends, we have plenty of time; what say you to a stroll? we might go to the entrance and have a look at the new-comers—what they are and how they behave.
27.1.2
The very thing. It will be an amusing sight—some weeping, some imploring to be let go, some resisting; when Hermes collars them, they will stick their heels in and throw their weight back; and all to no purpose.
27.1.3
Very well; and meanwhile, let me give you my experiences on the way down.
27.1.4
Yes, go on, Crates; I dare say you saw some entertaining sights.
27.2.1
We were a large party, of which the most distinguished were Ismenodorus, a rich townsman of ours, Arsaces, ruler of Media, and Oroetes the Armenian. Ismenodorus had been murdered by robbers going to Eleusis over Cithaeron, I believe. He was moaning, nursing his wound, apostrophizing the young children he had left, and cursing his foolhardiness. He knew Cithaeron and the Eleutherae district were all devastated by the wars, and yet he must take only two servants with him— with five bowls and four cups of solid gold in his baggage, too.
27.3.1
Arsaces was an old man of rather imposing aspect; he expressed his feelings in true barbaric fashion, was exceedingly angry at being expected to walk, and kept calling for his horse. In point of factit had died with him, it and he having been simultaneously transfixed by a Thracian pikeman in the fight with the Cappadocians on the Araxes, Arsaces described to us how he had charged far in advance of his men, and the Thracian, standing his ground and sheltering himself with his buckler, warded off the lance, and then, planting his pike, transfixed man and horse together.
27.4.1
How could it possibly be done simultaneously?
27.4.2
Oh, quite simple, The Median was charging with his thirty-foot lance in front of him; the Thracian knocked it aside with his buckler; the point glanced by; then he knelt, received the charge on his pike, pierced the horse’s chest—the spirited beast impaling itself by its own impetus—, and finally ran Arsaces through groin and buttock. You see what happened; it was the horse’s doing rather than the man’s. However, Arsaces did not at all appreciate equality, and wanted to come down on horseback.
27.5.1
As for Oroetes, he was so tender-footed that he could not stand, far less walk. That is the way with all the Medes—once they are off their horses, they go delicately on tiptoe as if they were treading on thorns. He threw himself down, and there he lay; nothing would induce him to get up; so the excellent Hermes had to pick him up and carry him to the ferry; how I laughed!
27.6.1
When I came down, I did not keep with the crowd; I left them to their blubberings, ran on to the ferry, and secured a comfortable seat for the passage. Then as we crossed, they were divided between tears and sea-sickness, and gave me a merry time of it.
27.7.1
You two have described your fellow passengers; now for mine. There came down with me Blepsias, the Pisatan usurer, Lampis, an Acarnanian freelance, and the Corinthian millionaire Damis, The last had been poisoned by his son, Lampis had cut his throat for love of the courtesan Myrtium, and the wretched Blepsias is supposed to have died of starvation; his awful pallor and extreme emaciation looked like it. I inquired into the manner of their deaths, though I knew very well. When Damis exclaimed upon his son, ‘You only have your deserts,’ I remarked,—‘an old man of ninety living in luxury yourself with your million of money, and fobbing off your eighteen-year son with a few pence! As for you, sir Acarnanian’—he was groaning and cursing Myrtium—, ‘why put the blame on Love? it belongs to yourself; you were never afraid of an enemy—took all sorts of risks in other people’s service—and then let yourself be caught, my hero, by the artificial tears and sighs of the first wench you came across.’ Blepsias uttered his own condemnation, without giving me time to do it for him: he had hoarded his money for heirs who were nothing to him, and been fool enough to reckon on immortality. I assure you it was no common satisfaction I derived from their whinings.
27.8.1
But here we are at the gate; we must keep our eyes open, and get the earliest view. Lord, lord, what a mixed crowd! and all in tears except these babes and sucklings. Why, the hoary seniors are all lamentation too; strange! has madam Life given them a love-potion?
27.9.1
I must interrogate this most reverend senior of them all.—Sir, why weep, seeing that you have died full of years? has your excellency any complaint to make, after so long a term? Ah, but you were doubtless a king.
27.9.2
Not so.
27.9.3
A provincial governor, then?
27.9.4
No, nor that.
27.9.5
I see; you were wealthy, and do not like leaving your boundless luxury to die.
27.9.6
You are quite mistaken; I was near ninety, made a miserable livelihood out of my line and rod, was excessively poor, childless, a cripple, and had nearly lost my sight.
27.9.7
And you still wished to live?
27.9.8
Ay, sweet is the light, and dread is death; would that one might escape it!
27.9.9
You are beside yourself, old man; you are like a child kicking at the pricks, you contemporary of the ferryman. Well, we need wonder no more at youth, when age is still in love with life; one would have thought it should court death as the cure for its proper ills. —And now let us go our way, before our loitering here brings suspicion on us; they may think we are planning an escape.
28.1.1
Whether you are blind or not, Tiresias, would be a difficult question. Eyeless sockets are the rule among us; there is no telling Phineus from Lynceus nowadays. However, I know that you were a seer, and that you enjoy the unique distinction of having been both man and woman; I have it from the poets. Pray tell me which you found the more pleasant life, the man’s or the woman’s?
28.1.2
The woman’s, by a long way; it was much less trouble. Women have the mastery of men; and there is no fighting for them, no manning of walls, no squabbling in the assembly, no eross-examination in the law-courts.
28.2.1
Well, but you have heard how Medea, in Euripides, compassionates her sex on their hard lot—on the intolerable pangs they endure in travail? And by the way—Medea’s words remind me—did you ever have a child, when you were a woman, or were you barren?
28.2.2
What do you mean by that question, Menippus?
28.2.3
Oh, nothing; but I should like to know, if it is no trouble to you.
28.2.4
I was not barren: but I did not have a child, exactly.
28.2.5
No; but you might have had. That’s all I wanted to know.
28.2.6
Certainly.
28.2.7
And your feminine characteristics gradually vanished, and you developed a beard, and became a man? Or did the change take place in a moment?
28.2.8
Whither does your question tend? One would think you doubted the fact.
28.2.9
And what should I do but doubt such a story? AmI to take it in, like a nincompoop, without asking myself whether it is possible or not?
28.3.1
At that rate, I suppose you are equally incredulous when you hear of women being turned into birds or trees or beasts,— Aëdon for instance, or Daphne, or Callisto?
28.3.2
If I fall in with any of these ladies, I will see what they have to say about it. But to return, friend, to your own case: were you a prophet even in the days of your femininity? or did manhood and prophecy come together?
28.3.3
Pooh, you know nothing of the matter. I once settled a dispute among the Gods, and was blinded by Hera for my pains; whereupon Zeus consoled me with the gift of prophecy.
28.3.4
Ah, you love a lie still, Tiresias. But there, ’tis your trade. You prophets! There is no truth in you.
29.1.1
If you went mad and wrought your own destruction, Ajax, in default of that you designed for us all, why put the blame on Odysseus? Why would you not vouchsafe him a look or a word, when he came to consult Tiresias that day? you stalked past your old comrade in arms as if he was beneath your notice.
29.1.2
Had I not good reason? My madness lies at the door of my solitary rival for the arms.
29.1.3
Did you expect to be unopposed, and carry it over us all without a contest?
29.1.4
Surely, in such a matter. The armour was mine by natural right, seeing I was Achilles’s cousin. The rest of you, his undoubted superiors, refused to compete, recognizing my claim. It was the son of Laertes, he that I had rescued scores of times when he would have been cut to pieces by the Phrygians, who set up for a better man and a stronger claimant than I.
29.2.1
Blame Thetis, then, my good sir; it was she who, instead of delivering the inheritance to the next of kin, brought the arms and left the ownership an open question.
29.2.2
No, no; the guilt was in claiming them—alone, I mean.
29.2.3
Surely, Ajax, a mere man may be forgiven the sin of coveting honour—that sweetest bait for which each one of us adventured; nay, and he outdid you there, if a Trojan verdict counts.
29.2.4
Who inspired that verdict? I know, but about the Gods we may not speak. Let that pass; but cease to hate Odysseus? ’tis not in my power, Agamemnon, though Athene’s self should require it of me.
30.1.1
Sostratus, the pirate here, can be dropped into Pyriphlegethon, Hermes; the temple-robber shall be clawed by the Chimera; and lay out the tyrant alongside of Tityus, there to have his liver torn by the vultures. And you honest fellows can make the best of your way to Elysium and the Isles of the Blest; this it is to lead righteous lives.
30.1.2
A word with you, Minos. See if there is not some justice in my plea.
30.1.3
What, more pleadings? Have you not been convicted of villany and murder without end?
30.1.4
I have. Yet consider whether my sentence is just.
30.1.5
Is it just that you should have your deserts? If so, the sentence is just.
30.1.6
Well, answer my questions; I will not detain you long.
30.1.7
Say on, but be brief; I have other cases waiting for me.
30.2.1
The deeds of my life—were they in my own choice, or were they decreed by Fate?
30.2.2
Decreed, of course.
30.2.3
Then all of us, whether we passed for honest men or rogues, were the instruments of Fate in all that we did?
30.2.4
Certainly; Clotho prescribes the conduct of every man at his birth.
30.2.5
Now suppose a man commits a murder under compulsion of a power which he cannot resist, an executioner, for instance, at the bidding of a judge, or a bodyguard at that of a tyrant. Who is the murderer, according to you?
30.2.6
The judge, of course, or the tyrant. As well ask whether the sword is guilty, which is but the tool of his anger who is prime mover in the affair.
30.2.7
I am indebted to you for a further illustration of my argument. Again: a slave, sent by his master, brings me gold or silver; to whom am I to be grateful? who goes down on my tablets as a benefactor?
30.2.8
The sender; the bringer is but his minister.
30.3.1
Observe then your injustice! You punish us who are but the slaves of Clotho’s bidding, and reward these, who do but minister to another’s beneficence. For it will never be said that it was in our power to gainsay the irresistible ordinances of Fate?
30.3.2
Ah, Sostratus; look closely enough, and you will find plenty of inconsistencies besides these. However, I see you are no common pirate, but a philosopher in your way; so much you have gained by your questions. Let him go, Hermes; he shall not be punished after that. But mind, Sostratus, you must not put it into other people’s heads to ask questions of this kind.

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