Himerius, Orations

ToposText · Himerius · 532 sections

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§ 7.1 From the Areopagiticus; or, [The Plea] for Free Status for His Son, Rufinus Men [i.e., Areopagites ] who long ago made decisions for the gods on who should [legally] prevail and now make decisions for the Athenians on the granting of free status...24
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§ 7.2 So, in obedience to the law, I shall speak only with reference to the matter at hand. I have been both a sophist and a father among you. You know whether or not I am an accomplished sophist, for I am always speaking, and my life is lived in lecture halls. Whether or not I am an Attic father, the present occasion will show.
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§ 7.3 For I find it intolerable not to call the son of Athenians free. I entrust my son with freedom even before he reaches the legal age. He is mine, he is an Athenian, he belongs to a city that honors its own antiquity as a commonwealth more than others honor their fathers’ old age....
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§ 7.4 This young man is a descendant of Plutarch, through whom you educate the whole world. He is a descendant of Minucianus, who obtained free status for many people on many occasions by means of his eloquence. I have brought before you the descendant of Nicagoras, my own son. [In mentioning these ancestors of my son], I am making a list of sophists and philosophers for you, and they are truly the nobility of Attica....
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§ 7.5 I have often spoken as a sophist, now I speak as a father....
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§ 7.6 You have given me a son of the Attic race; accept him now as one made free by your decree. Free my son for me by your decree and let your free voices resound with [his], so that as an Athenian —which is the same as saying as a free man—he may speak and propose laws among you and, if the gods are willing, play a political role in your commonwealth.
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§ 8.1 A Monody for His Son, Rufinus I am utterly wrong in speaking now that Rufinus lies buried; nonetheless I shall speak, since fate has preserved me solely to lament this tragedy. For it would not be right for me to fail to mourn in words the child of eloquence. And what a glorious subject to speak on! Surely, [my son], glorious fortune has preserved your father’s eloquence for you. I do wish that I had been speaking next to your tomb, that your grave had been my platform—a platform of the thrice-happy. As it is, you have been snatched away from me without having spoken to me, without having addressed me, without having embraced me for the last time.
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§ 8.2 Fate actually seemed to give birth to tragedy before you died, from that day when it deprived me [by my absence] of my enjoyment of you and separated you from my hugs and kisses. But why do I bring a charge against fate? It was I who was responsible for losing you, my child, [by my departure]. Why did I separate myself from your embraces? You were the spoils of an envy aimed at me, an unjust spirit’s incidental victim. Oh, what a tragic and cruel day that was! What light shone on me before that, what darkness then took its place! I had stood there every day with my ears ready to take in much-desired news [about my son]. I always kept watch for a messenger who would tell me that Rufinus was coming. What great news that would have been. But what news the [evil] spirit was preparing for me instead!
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§ 8.3 At night I used to think about a bath, a house, and riches for you— about all the things that human beings consider the finest. During the day I worked to provide such things for you. Little did I know, wretch that I was, that I was preparing a tomb for you instead of a bath, a grave and a mound instead of a house, gifts for the tomb—the most tragic offerings there are for human beings—instead of riches and luxury.
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§ 8.4 Would that you had not been born at all, my dear son, or at least that you did not shine on me so much and so greatly with your soul, your body, and your virtues. You were already a public speaker as soon as you spoke your first words. You made the whole world hang on you with your still unintelligible whimperings. Pericles was the love of elite ears from all over the world, but he became a public speaker only after studying under Anaxagoras; you, on the other hand, were a public speaker right in your swaddling clothes. Alcibiades won over his whole audience with his [physical] beauty, but he was already at the peak of young manhood and in his teens; you had this effect on people when you were still at the breast, taking your mother’s milk. Oh calamity worthy of Aeschylus’s grandiloquence! What shall I lament? What shall I praise? I shall say what those who were familiar with you know and what those who hear about you suppose.
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§ 8.5 O you who once were the adornment of the Graces but now that of the Erinyes! Alas, on account of you I have acquired epithets quite opposite to the ones I had: I was once called thrice-happy because of you, but now I am called thrice-wretched. For what land did you not traverse in reputation? What place did you not fill with your fame and your young qualities? Heracles needed to do much traveling and to endure the Twelve Labors, I suppose, in order to get the whole earth to witness his virtue; but you, with your wonders, have gone beyond the Pillars of Heracles for us [in reputation] without even leaving your circle of acquaintances. How you have ensnared everyone with your charms!
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§ 8.6 Fathers exalt other children, I think, by commonly and often making up things about them. But in your case the normal situation was reversed: your father was silent or said little about your fine qualities, being apprehensive of fortune’s spite because of the greatness of your virtue. It was everyone else who told your father about your fine qualities! Thus by your wondrous nature you enslaved people of every station and of every age all by yourself.
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§ 8.7 What [evil] spirit cut off my hearth’s golden lock of hair? What spirit extinguished that most bright fire of my glory? What grave’s dust covers that sacred hair that you began to grow for Dionysus shortly after you were born? What dust covers those eyes that in their beauty almost put the sun’s rays to shame? What Erinys carried off the blush of your cheeks and the soft and sweet smile of your face? Alas, Dionysus, how did you put up with the seizure of this young man, consecrated [to you], from your precinct? The Erinyes have erected this trophy both against you and against my hearth.
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§ 8.8 What a gloomy Bacchic festival! Oh, how Cithaeron has been outdone by the misfortunes that I have suffered! Alas, Demeter and Kore, you did not take care of your hearth-initiate. He is being initiated all right, but in an underground precinct, and, I think, with some gloomy and bitter spirit instead of a father as celebrant of the rites. He beholds, not the fire of the daduchs, but the torches of the Erinyes and the Poenae. Why did I not pass away first? Why did I, the father, not precede my son in death? Why was I not preparing a place beneath the earth where he could lie, since the envy of the Erinyes deprived him of a bed in this upper world on which he would have lain with a wife? For what mourning have I been kept alive! I have dared to speak on every subject, avoiding only laments. I was unaware, of course, that I was being kept alive to lament my own misfortune.
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§ 8.9 I am wrapping you in words, my child, since I have been prevented from wrapping you in a shroud. I am building you a sepulchral mound with words, since my absence kept me from heaping up the one over your corpse. And what words I am uttering about you now after the equally noteworthy ones of an earlier occasion! For your burial follows my plea for you before the Areopagus [i.e., Orat. 7], your death follows my obtaining free status for you. Because of you, it seems, the spirits who are neighbors of that court [the Areopagus ] remembered their ancient names, being unable to bring any charge or accusation against you.
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§ 8.10 For who loved his father as much as you did? Who was more just in his relations with his kin and parents? I and your mother, ill-starred parents that we are, used to compete with one another in our love for you. But you would put an end to that competition, approaching each of us in such a way that we both thought we were winners of the prize. Oh how the words you spoke flowed with honey! What a voice you had, sweeter than the nectar that is praised and celebrated among the gods!
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§ 8.11 Long ago you were giving thought to your departure from this world, long ago you were making clear to those capable of reading the signs that you were too good for life here on earth. For what old man was as attached to the worship of the gods as you were? What seer or priest would run to sacred precincts and altars with such divine inspiration? What sacred pipe sounded hymns more sweetly than your tongue did? What lyra, what kithara played paeans to the gods that were more melodious than what came out of your mouth?
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§ 8.12 O you who earlier exceeded the limits of your age in your possession of the virtues and have now done so in your dying! O you who in your love of your sister deserve more praise than the Dioscuri! For they waged war on Helen’s behalf but could not prevent her from being carried off; you though, were a phalanx for your full sister, stronger than any wall. Who, even among the very solemn, was more naturally made for self-control than you? You kept away from what was harmful on your own, often not even waiting for someone to tell you to keep away. Once you knew that something could lead to harm or disease, you would never have touched it, not even with the tips of your fingers, not even if you were drawn to it by thoughts of thousands upon thousands of happy outcomes. And if you did ever come into contact with something harmful in ignorance, it was enough to tell you so, and you would immediately heed the warning.
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§ 8.13 How could one marvel [enough] at your courage? Severe attacks of disease get the better of people who are otherwise invincible. But you, relying only on your soul’s fortitude, always stood firm against all the diseases that attacked you—and they were serious. Perhaps it was for this very reason that that evil and savage spirit, having striven to defeat you and worsted by you so many times, in the end used a treacherous and deceitful contrivance to knock you down. Even so, you did not yield to the spirit until the very last, as one can learn [from those who witnessed your death]. You succumbed in body, but not in mind. He kept trying to strangle and overpower you, while you, with a noose around your neck, continued to call out the name of your dear nurse Athena, until he isolated you from all your allies and thus was able to tighten the noose. For he knew that, when your father was present and fighting by your side, he had often gone away defeated.
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§ 8.14 How much time will be needed to end my attachment to your fine qualities? What mix of Egyptian drugs will detach me from them. How can I look upon the plain of Athena now that you are gone? What place in the countryside or in the city shall I look upon without immediately being filled with lamentation, tears, and all manner of wailing? If I go to the council-chamber, I shall think that I see you on the speaker’s platform trying to win over the members of the council. If I go before an audience, it will remind me of my gloomy tragedy, for it was before audiences that everyone often praised you en masse.
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§ 8.15 Even the best of the Athenians all let the acclamations go to you alone. It was you alone who caused all alike to rejoice when you outdid them, some because of the goodwill engendered by their love [of you], others perhaps out of fear of what might happen [to you] in the future. The former you won over, the latter you unsettled—no, you carried off the victory prize in every contest in a spirit of goodwill and love. How can I look upon the Areopagus? When you were not yet three years old, you astonished everyone there with your seriousness, like someone who had already been learning the ancient stories about that court for some time. You outdid your father there by maintaining a silence that was more remarkable than his eloquence. You were more reserved and imperturbable than the members of the court. On that occasion one could see the always pensive council smiling for the first time. You touched their souls, and they fell in love with you. Not even gods pleading their cases before those judges had managed to touch their souls in this way.
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§ 8.16 How shall I be affected when I look out at audiences who have gathered to hear [my] oratorical displays? It was you who used to convene such gatherings at our home for me, although in your character you gave me something sweeter than all the voices of the world. In the future, the places that I formerly loved the most will be hostile to me; all the places I previously preferred I shall regard as unfriendly. The beautiful grove that I planted for your wedding has become your grave.
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§ 8.17 Where will you embrace me if I come [back to Athens ]? In our house? But you deserted that house, having left it behind as a reminder of my gloomy tragedy alone. Well, will you embrace me in those sacred groves, thick with trees? I shall find you there, but I shall find you offering me streams of tears instead of kisses. O sweetest child, how you paraded [in death], as they tell it, from the city to a place that was once pleasant but is now more tragic than Cithaeron! Not the way you once paraded with your father, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a carriage. O you who often said things more marvelous than what men have written in serious memoirs! What day went by, what journey or place was there, in which one did not hear your pleasant voice or a well-aimed remark from you?
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§ 8.18 By your death you have barred me from the gates of the city. For how will my eyes be affected if I pass through them? You have barred me from Eleusis. For how shall I, who bring a charge against the goddesses of that place [ Demeter and Kore ], enter their sacred precinct? How shall I put my trust in a Dionysus who has failed to protect for me my son, who was consecrated [to him]? How shall I sacrifice to Athena, who did not shake her Gorgon [aegis] at that [evil] spirit in defense of you, my child? How shall I pray to the god of our fathers, a father myself in grief over what happened to my son? How can I go before a Greek audience to make a lament for you the introduction to my rhetorical displays? How shall I tolerate my suffering when I look at your coevals? How, after setting my eyes on my young students, can I endure my woe? When I was away, you shepherded them for me, guiding all of them by kindnesses rather than words.
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§ 8.19 You were a guard to my years through the love people felt for you; for with you in mind people were ashamed to do any injury to me. They all respected your youth more than my old age. Oh you shameless words! Rufinus lies dead, but you keep pouring forth [from my mouth] with youthful insolence! Oh unfortunate tongue [of mine], previously the instrument of the Muses, but now that of a crude (ἀμούσου) spirit! Let this rhetorical display of mine be part of the painful dirge being sung for him.
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§ 8.20 O sweetest son, once much-desired, now lamented more than anyone else. In the past you were the support of my house, now you are its dark and gloomiest sorrow. You shone more quickly than the morning star, but you were also quickly extinguished. When the sun first saw you, you showed me a day brighter than all other days; and after I got that tragic and unfortunate news [of your death], you showed me one darker than all others.
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§ 8.21 What shall I say that is worthy of your qualities? What sort of mournful and tragic music shall I compose in order to bewail you as much as I wish? What hopes I had for you! To what bad luck my [evil] spirit has condemned me! I now lament the person who I hoped would speak more forcefully than Minucianus, more solemnly than Nicagoras, more eloquently than Plutarch, more philosophically than Musonius, more intrepidly than Sextus —in a word, more brilliantly and better than all of his ancestors. I myself yielded the prize to you when you were still a boy. I regarded your words as better than mine. I always preferred your inarticulate speech to my serious efforts. But the [evil] spirit has robbed me of all this and gone off, letting me have laments and tears instead of you.
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§ 8.22 Accept these libations, then, which I pour out for you by the banks of the Melas [Black] River. The experts would know if this river ever confirmed the appropriateness of its name on some other occasion by the character of its waters. But in the present circumstances it really did turn dark and black for me, more dismal than any a Cocytus or Acheron. It is just as if the [evil] spirit waylaid me so that everything would be worthy of the stage and the tragedy—the place, the time, the knowledge of my misfortune. The time was night, the place was the Melas River, the message was that Rufinus was dead. In the middle of this was your father, simultaneously lamenting and writing a speech, torn between my labors and my tears.
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§ 8.23 You, O child, have gone, of course, to the place to which the [evil] spirit led you. But, if possible, you will be immortal [here on earth] through your father’s efforts, even if you now surely observe everything from up there somewhere, frolicking with the gods-—playing with Eros, making merry with Hymenaeus, prophesying with Bacchus, being inspired with Trophonius. (It would not be likely, of course, that such a great soul went down somewhere into the netherworld instead of joining the company of gods.) I shall honor you with funeral competitions, I shall hand down your name to time, and I shall be more ambitious than the [evil] spirit at least to this end: that, if that spirit has your body and heaven your soul, your repute may be a possession of all humankind.
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§ 9.1 The Epithalamium for Severus One might perhaps regard it as useless to theorize about the art of composing nuptial orations. For when you have [the marriage-god] Hymenaeus and choruses and the freedom of poetic license, what chance does art have? But since the knowledgeable person should do nothing, even in cases such as these, without reference to the art [of rhetoric], it is worth saying a few things about this kind of oration. The best rule for nuptial orations should be to look to the poets for diction, to what is needed for the contents, and to the situation for length. If the oration has aimed to do all this, the written version of it will clearly show it.
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§ 9.2 A nuptial oration has four parts. The first part functions as a prooemium: it reveals through elegant arguments the frame of mind in which the speaker has undertaken the rhetorical display. The second part addresses the question of marriage. Since this is a common human theme, we made it our own with fresh arguments and by the manner in which we expressed our thoughts. We also sweetly added some erudition to it, which those steeped in learning will not fail to notice. The third part of a nuptial oration has an encomium of the spouses. In reviewing the qualities of the [two] people being praised, it moves along quickly and [thereby] suits the matter at hand. The oration ends with a description of the bride, in which it presents a poetic beauty, the length of treatment being determined by the situation. the oration
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§ 9.3 They say that, after the great victories he won playing the lyre, Apollo also sounded the wedding song over bridal chambers. If what the poets say is not sheer myth, he first struck up this latter kind of music amidst glens and caves when he sang these charming tunes to his beloved. So, my boys, since I am summoning my Muses to a wedding chorus and to love, it is time for me, too, to be done with serious music so that I may dance along with young girls in honor of Aphrodite.
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§ 9.4 But one can learn from the poets themselves that it is very dangerous to try to come up with a song tender enough to please that goddess. Most of them, skilled as I believe they were in matters involving love, have shown Hera acting brazenly against deities and young girls. They left it to Lesbian Sappho to sing with her lyre of the rites of Aphrodite and to prepare the bedroom. After the contests, the poetess entered the bedroom; she readies it, makes the bed, gathers young maidens the bridal chamber, and leads Aphrodite to the Graces’ chariot along with her chorus of Erotes, who sport with her. She bound Aphrodite’s hair in blue, except for the parted hair on her forehead, letting what was unbound ripple in any breezes that might blow. Having adorned the Erotes’ wings and locks of hair with gold, she urges them on as they process and wave their torches in the air in front of the chariot.
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§ 9.5 The duty done by Sappho must now be done by me. For the young man being initiated in marriage is not alien or a stranger to eloquence. Very recently he was a reveler in the camp of the Muses, then he suddenly leaped away from my precincts and took his merrymaking to Aphrodite. So it would be fitting for me to join the chorus at his wedding. The cowherd in the glens takes up his pipe when he sees a young bull he has raised brought to full maturity under the guidance of Aphrodite. Horsekeepers strike up a song when their colts start acting like adult males in their relations with mares. Chiron would not have remained silent in the case of Achilles, if the latter had not concealed his love for Hippodamia. And I understand that the pastoral god Pan played his pipe more forcefully when Dionysus took Ariadne to wife in Cretan caves.
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§ 9.6 I want to tell you a story. Poseidon once loved Pelops. When Pelops was young, Poseidon taught him how to mount horses and to drive a chariot on the waves, keeping it skimming over the ocean’s surface. But when love of Hippodamia persuaded Pelops, too, to serve Eros and Aphrodite, then the god gathered together a chorus of Nereids and raised up a bedroom for him on a headland of the shore. The bedroom, I believe, was a wave, heaving and tall and curved up over the bed so as to resemble a bridal chamber. Poseidon sang a wedding song for Pelops. But I shall leave such things to the gods and to Poseidon. I shall begin my song of marriage from where it is reasonable and necessary, elevating my oration to the regions where the bedroom and marriage had their beginnings.
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§ 9.7 Once there were God and nature. God needed generation, and nature needed someone who would impregnate. Marriage did not exist yet, nor had that which would bring forth been joined yet with that which could beget. So that this process would begin from on high, the All became a bedroom for the All, and from this marriage were born the sky and the sun and also the chorus of stars, the light of the moon, and the two poles, around which the first offspring of God’s first marriage revolve.
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§ 9.8 After this marriage, nature showed forth a second marriage, that of Ocean and Tethys, out of which emerged rivers and marshes, and also springs and streams and deep wells, and the sea, which is the mother of all waters. Plants and animals were produced, the earth was inhabited, the sea received swimming creatures, and the air showed itself traversable by winged creatures. Marriage gave plants over to plants, rivers to streams, hail and rain to the earth, the Nile to Egypt —in a word, the male to the female. Then the Ister [Danube] fell in love with the sea near the Bosporus, the Rhine with the sea near the Celtic cities. Eros divided these two rivers, which arise from the same source, through the agency of desire, giving one as a bridegroom to the Euxine [Black] Sea and the other to the Atlantic Ocean.
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§ 9.9 The last thing that marriage produced was the human being, who is a contemplator of the divine, although his work is limited to this earthly realm. (The idea that man is a child of the earth and that the Attic soil broke open at his birth and brought him forth as its offspring is a myth, an entertaining story of Attic charm.) Having produced this human being, marriage helped him discover and procure everything by which he makes land and sea his home. Through the human being marriage made furrows in the ground with the plow, launched ships on the waves, and tamed horses with the curb. It gave him weapons for war, festivities for peace, honor for old age, the bloom of life and the sweet hope of children for his youthful prime. Thus we sacrificed to the generative gods, we recognized Hera the matchmaker, and we erected an altar to Zeus teleios; the latter broke open the waves for the birth of Aphrodite, who was concealed in the ocean, and revealed her sparkling in the sunlight.
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§ 9.10 As for the race of heroes, which is midway between divine and human nature, whose work would you say it was except that of marriage. For when marriage saw that it was totally forbidden to mix the upper with the lower sphere, it produced something between those two spheres so that it could bring the divine emanation over into the lesser realm. As a result of this, Heracles labors, Dionysus farms, Asclepius heals, and the Dioscuri guide the fortunes of those who cross the seas. Marriage would also have to be celebrated by the Muses because it produced them, by Apollo because it brought him forth, and by Hermes because it caused him to come into existence.
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§ 9.11 Now if I should wish to speak of the loves of rivers, an endless throng of them would flow into my oration. For they all seem to me to love the ocean, and consequently they hasten on to it with great speed, each one wishing to greet its beloved before any other does. If we had to link the doings of rivers to marriage, then marriage would have been celebrated because of them. Marriage introduced Thisbe to a river. Thisbe and the river were mutual neighbors. Marriage changed Thisbe from a girl into water and preserved the couple’s love right through that change, uniting the flowing waters of the beloved and her spouse. Tradition knows of the river Enipeus as one who scorned love; yet, in order to provide an erotic myth even in this case, it came up with the story of Poseidon’s marriage in that river. The Enipeus swelled in joy, surging and bulging up to form a bridal chamber, as if, I think, haughtily disposed toward other rivers because it alone had been entrusted with Poseidon’s love. But why do I need myths from abroad? Marriage makes the Ilissus River mad with passion right down from its Attic source. And lest we find fault with the river because, like some lover, it perhaps gets tripped up in the presence of its beloved, marriage has not only adorned the river’s spring, but also the spring’s very name, having joined beauty of appellation to its flowing waters.
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§ 9.12 So these (and all the rest) are the beauties of marriage; the poets sing of them, and it is customary to rehearse them at the bridal chamber. But this couple here especially confirm the charm of marriage. They have not been brought into this harmonious state by chance. Just as when a pair of colts of the same age is put under a single yoke, they quickly find concord as they run together; so too this couple, of the same birth and similar upbringing, have, in their completely identical circumstances, passionately desired union. It is said that, when Olympias, who was [later] blessed with the birth of Alexander [the Great], was once celebrating the mysteries of the Cabiri in Samothrace, she saw Philip, who was still just getting his first beard, during the rites. Upon seeing him, she fell in love with the young man and, having turned the mysteries into a prenuptial sacrifice, she vowed that she would marry him....20
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§ 9.13 The bride’s fatherland is a Thracian city named after King Philip. In the north, and west of the Bosporus, the Scythians to it, and south of it is the Aegean Sea. Her family was Thracian from the very start; they were indigenous, I believe, and traced their most distant roots back to kingly stock. People called Hermogenes and Medus and those who even now are preeminent among the Thracians share roots with her on both sides of her family.
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§ 9.14 The bridegroom’s family are natives of so-called Diospontus. The head of that family, I believe, was the renowned Androclus. From this one root, as it were, innumerable sprouts broke off and shot forth all over the world, making many cities fortunate because of the family’s association with them. This is just what I hear about the Pelopidae, when the famous [head of that family] crossed over from Ionia to Greece and brought the honor of his name to that people. Others would consider it a great advantage if they could lay claim to the glory of Androclus in just one branch of their family. But this [bridegroom] has experienced what happens when rivers flow out from a single source, then diverge in a number of streams and come together again: the family of Androclus, after wandering around for a long time, has been tied down and amalgamated again in him. Those who say that Achilles was born of a divine mother [ Thetis ] also say that he was the son of mortal Peleus. Our bridegroom enjoys the equal good fortune of having this same mixture in his parents.
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§ 9.15 So much, then, for the question of family. But the couple’s traits and [simultaneous] flourishing confirm their similarity much more. For they flourish equally, like buds from a single meadow in spring, buds that appear and open up at the same time. They have a remarkable similarity of soul. They are both self-controlled, of upright character, different only in the activities that they are inclined to by their natural propensities. She, through her spinning, has reaped the fruit of Athena’s craft; he, through serious application, has reaped the fruit of Hermes’ charm. Her concern is the shuttle; his is the spoken and written word. She holds a lyre; he clings to a book. Aphrodite loves her; Apollo has become very fond of him. He was the first of unmarried young men; she is the chosen one among girls. He, while still a young adolescent, got a beard sooner than his coevals; and she is quite ready for marriage. ([16] It was Sappho, of course, who compared the girl [in her poem] to an apple. Those who rush to pick her prematurely do even get to taste of her with the tips of their fingers; instead, she saves her grace, in its full bloom, for the man who intends to pluck the apple at the right time.)2. Sappho also likened the bridegroom [she was writing about] to Achilles and equated the young man’s actions with his. Just as poetry puts that famous hero in command of the whole Hellenic force in wartime, so too this young man [ Severus ], leading his own band, has won many great contests. If judgment is required, he wins through the use of his mind. If courage is needed, he overcomes his contemporaries. If it is a liberal disposition that the situation demands, he outdoes all his peers in philosophy. This renown of his is what won him this fortunate bride. For the Erotes know how to stir up the wedding fire, even when shooting their arrows overseas.
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§ 9.17 In joining together Deianira, daughter of Oeneus, and Heracles, legend makes her someone who was fought over by [the river] Acheloüs and others. As if wishing to indicate that it was not ignorant of the [relative] worth of [potential] bridegrooms, legend gave the bride to Heracles and left the river a tragic loser. But I think that every arrangement is a decision of the gods—[in this case] so that, after [the bridegroom] has secured a foreign rather than Attic marriage, he will at least set up his bedchamber in Attic territory in order that this land may welcome and nurture the first offspring of the marriage and through you, [ Severus ], bring happiness to Thrace by means of Attic progeny.
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§ 9.18 It occurs to me that I should not fail to mention and praise the woman who has been the orchestrator of this marriage. My art and hers have the same forefathers. She does not disgrace our [ Athenian ] race by her sex, for in her eloquence she is another Aspasia. In her wisdom she outdoes the foreign woman of Mantinea to the same extent that Athenians are superior to Arcadians. She obtains for the city [of Athens ] a Thracian in-law who derives his name from that wise [city of ] Chalcis, as if, I think, she is eager to confirm the ancient story that love of Oreithyia brought the wind Boreas from Thrace to Athens and, through the young lady, linked the wind to the city. There are many fine things that one could say about this woman I am praising, but it would be especially fitting to admire her for what she did in the case of this marriage. For the gods saved this girl [i.e., the bride], who was almost on the verge of being caught by evil snares.
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§ 9.19 But my oration has lingered outside the bridal chamber and has quite neglected the bride, as if unaware that it troubles the bridegroom by not yet having given a verbal depiction of her. Very well, we shall now conduct my oration into the bedroom and persuade it to encounter the bride’s beauty. “O beautiful woman, O graceful woman”—for Lesbian accolades suit you—rosy-ankled Graces and golden Aphrodite play with you, the Hours supply you with the meadow’s flowers. Leap nimbly to the accompaniment of song. Dance over the flowers. The Erotes have fashioned crowns of roses, which they cut from Aphrodite’s gardens whenever they wish, and are putting them all over your bed. Persuasion, Love, and Desire divided the whole of your beauty among themselves. [Desire] takes up a position in your eyes, sending out from them its irresistible flames. [ Love ] reddens your cheeks with modesty more than nature colors rosebuds, when in springtime they split open in their maturity and show the redness at the tops of their petals. Persuasion settles on your lips and lets its charm trickle out along with your words. Many curls appear on your head, reddish and parted on your brow. And if I want to describe the flower of your appearance, I would have to speak the words of poets: “What fairness of skin, white as milk!” These are the words a shepherd [the Cyclops Polyphemus ] addressed somewhere in the works of those poets to the Nereid Galateia whom he loved, having used his skill to compose a song for her.
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§ 9.20 Having brought together a chorus of Graces, he would have given this bride to the goddesses as their playmate. But if I had a poetic nature such that I could freely let my tongue loose on the subject of the bride, I would have spoken of her beauty like. Homer. I would have placed her, spotted with gold, in Aphrodite’s groves, not next to an altar of Apollo. I would have led the Muses out of Athens — and I fault the poets when they rob Athens of them and maintain that they belong to the Boeotians —I would have led the Nereids out of the nearby sea; I would have led choruses of Nymphs, resounding Dryads, leaping Satyrs, piping Pan, and Dionysus’s whole company out from wherever they practice their rites. As for Aphrodite herself, coming up from the midst of the sea with foam still dripping from the ends of her strands of hair after she emerged from the ocean, I would have placed her above the marriage bed with her sweet smiles and her commands to her children [the Erotes ] to shoot arrows at the couple. If a song had been needed, I would have provided the following one: “O bride, you who are brimming with rosy love, O bride, most beautiful delight of Paphian [ Aphrodite ], approach the bed, approach the place where marriage is consummated, O gently playful bride, such a delight to your groom. Evening leads you on, and you do not resist; you honor the marriage goddess Hera in her silver throne.”28
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§ 9.21 But tell me, where are the choruses of maidens, where are the choruses of young bachelors? My eloquence leaves the rest of the festivities to you. Let someone light a large torch. Let someone else sound forth. Let song take hold of everything. Headlands and vales, the pipes of shepherds and of all herdsmen are resounding, just as when Zeus was begetting the daughters of Memory [i.e., the Muses ] on Mt. Helicon. I leave dancing to the dancers. I myself shall stand next to the bedroom and pray to Fortune, to Eros, and to the gods of procreation: to Eros, that he shoot every one of his arrows; to Fortune, that she give life; and to the gods of procreation, that they grant the birth of lawfully begotten children, so that one day we may join the drink-offering that celebrates birth with the cup that celebrates marriage.
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§ 10.i From the Speech Entitled “ Diogenes; or, A Propemptic Oration. This oration is also dignified by a preliminary explanatory comment (προθεωρία), and the dialogue form has left its mark on it as it was being fashioned. from the preliminary explanatory comment
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§ 10.1 The treatment we give to common themes is what makes them our own. Thus it is possible through the art of rhetoric to make propemptic orations seem older, even if they are a recent custom. And that is just what I have done. For I have put the present theme into the form of a dialogue without compromising the business at hand or destroying the dignity that is owed to the dialogue form. Although my discourse happens to be ethical, nonetheless in the manner of Plato I latch onto physical and theological considerations, mixing these with the ethical material. And since Plato hides his more divine discussions in myth, one should observe whether I emulated him in this. As for the other qualities of dialogues—I mean relief from monotony, arrangement of the material and interludes, also elegance and a dramatic flavor throughout—the written version of the oration will show better [than anything I might say here] whether or not I succeeded in achieving those qualities. Dialogues begin with a rather plain style so that the nature of the diction may produce a sense of simplicity; then in what follows they become elevated [in style] as the action progresses. Those whose ears have been prepared by rhetorical training to listen to orations may judge whether or not I have followed this pattern. from the dialogue itself
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§ 10.2 It is a time for silence, not for words, whenever eloquence is saddened at having to send forth pupils from its flock. Nevertheless, eloquence must give expression to itself, regardless of what befalls it. So if it pleases all of you, I shall declaim to you the oration that the feelings of concern that have taken hold of me have engendered....
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§ 10.3 Although the two men were as distant from one another in their rule as the middle part of Europe is separated from the inland recesses of Asia, where they met was in their longing for this person, each desiring to anticipate the other in carrying off the first fruits of his tongue....
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§ 10.4 You did not follow the initiatory custom that specifies one time for junior initiation and a later time for senior initiation. Rather you accepted one and the same person at one and the same time as both junior initiate in, and priest (profhvthn) of, the holy rite of your teachings, and you allowed him to be filled insatiably with the waters that flow from those teachings.... [5]... as you refresh yourself under the trees....
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§ 10.6 Haven’t you heard that long ago these cicadas were human beings; then, when in their love of the Muses they were dissolved into song as a result of their endless singing, they changed from human beings into birds and went from one melody to another?... [7] Then having rallied myself.... [8] I know how to pull back eloquence’s bowstring....
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§ 10.9 Listen to the story. When Zeus brought human beings into existence, they had everything, just as currently arranged, except that Eros was not yet dwelling in their souls; this god, with his wings still high above this world, frequented heaven and shot his arrows only at the gods. But Zeus feared that the most beautiful of his works [i.e., humankind] might perish, so he sent Eros to be a guardian of the human race. Eros accepted this role from Zeus, but he did not think that he should dwell in all souls or consider every personality, both newly initiated and unhallowed, to be part of his domain. Rather he assigned the shepherding of the many ordinary souls to the vulgar Erotes, the offspring of the Nymphs; and he himself dwelt in the divine and heavenly souls, and by rousing them to a loving frenzy he benefited the human race in countless ways. So whenever you see someone who is of a sluggish nature and cannot easily enter into a friendship, realize that this person is not deemed worthy of the gifts of that Eros. And when you see someone of sharp and heated disposition who, like fire, turns eagerly to a loving friendship, realize that he enjoys the hospitality of that Eros....
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§ 10.10 For you tell me, dear Socrates, best of lovers, about one part of Cleinias’s virtue, his courage in the face of fears, and this is a quality that practice often bestows without having awaited the guidance of reasoned discourse....
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§ 10.11 That which once gave Pericles the capacity to speak freely when he was general in the city [of Athens ] also gives it to him—namely, an honest character....
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§ 10.12 If you see this man barred from tribunals of justice, bewail the law because it has been overcome by money....
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§ 10.13 He reached his prime along with the emperor’s city [ Constantinople ], which marks the separation of great seas,25 and he laid the very same foundation for his own reputation as for the city’s. While that city, in swaddling clothes, was still being physically fashioned, he guided the rudder of other offices that were entrusted to him by the emperor. But when [ Constantinople ] needed a precise hand, such as is required to give shape to a statue, he returned to it so that he might be both beginning and end to the whole adornment of the city....
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§ 10.14... cities raised up, peoples flourishing, the life of Tartessus, the horn of Amaltheia, the whole sum of happiness....
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§ 10.15 But why [am I] so enthusiastic about this young man? Every soul that has recently been separated from the upper sphere still carries with it the fresh vision of the delights that it beheld when it danced that happy dance with chariots of the gods. So whenever such a soul sees here on earth a beauty hidden inside [another] divine soul, a beauty that it observed with no encasement around it when it was in the upper sphere, it bursts with joy at the sight and rushes to the site of that beauty to join itself with [that other soul], having been lightened by both [correct] opinion and [true] knowledge. This is what I experienced in the case of this young man. I saw in his soul, as if in a mirror, an image of my own mind appearing, and I delighted in it. Consequently I yearned for and sought out his soul as if it were my alter ego....
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§ 10.16 It is burdensome, dear [soul], and extremely difficult to be deprived in the course of time of a close relationship that one had been granted. But we yield, as they say, to the decrees of necessity and of the gods’ will, even if we do so reluctantly....
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§ 10.17 So he is quite capable of preserving in memory anything that he might have worked on under a mentor... as a philosopher [he will preserve] his judgment, as [he will preserve] not only this eloquence [that he learned from me], but also anything else he wishes from the abundance of the Muses’ and Apollo’s meadows. Having culled the foliage of all learning from those meadows, he has made his soul a vernal crown. If there should be a need for someone to speak, you would no longer ask whose boy he is29 and to whom he belonged; so thoroughly has he become an image of his mentor, more exactly so than any picture could be. He would be a good helper, if it should be necessary for him to assist his mentor, but he would also be good acting in his own right....
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§ 10.18 Poets and, along with them, painters and sculptors rightly divest Eros of old age and make this god young and adolescent, indicating his faithlessness by his youthfulness....
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§ 10.19 O you who were so strong in eloquence, as I hear that the Thessalian Cineas was. That man, who traversed every land and sea with King Pyrrhus, caused cities to yield through his eloquence before any engines of war did....
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§ 10.20 For I am not this fellow’s teacher, I swear by my love of you, O eloquence, because of whom I cast aside the blessed happiness of my native land [ Bithynian Prusias ] and have taken up residence by the mystic banks of the Ilissus....
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§ 10.21 Alexander, who used his military trophies as boundary stones for the whole world....
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§ 10.22 For the heat of midday slips away, and the breeze tempers the sun... and to part the waves surging around the prow by means of the Zephyr....
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§ 11.i From the Farewell [Talk] (συντακτική) to His Students, When H. Departed for Corinth
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§ 11.1 Whenever serious lyre-players of the past hastened to another land, they did not depart in silence but took leave of their followers with song and melody....[2]... not a melody that is out of tune and a trifling song...
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§ 12.1 A Propemptic Oration to Flavianus, Who Had Been Promoted to the consulship of Asia When Alexander, the son of Zeus —his great glory among the Greeks links him to heaven and to Zeus —when this Alexander, I say, filled the whole of Europe with his fame, he set out for Asia, wanting to link the continents with his wondrousness. He called for Timotheus’s pipe—it made a great sound, one worthy of such a great king—and, to the sound of its songs, he loosened the cables of his ships....
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§ 12.2 Come, now, I shall paint [a copy of ] the picture with my words; for words, I think, have their own paints for making representations of things. There was a ship and a sea in the picture. The sea, I think, was the Aegean; for there were many islands separated from each other in various parts of it, and because of them it was clear that the sea was the Aegean. It had not been depicted as rough and wild nor as casting its waves up to the very clouds themselves, which is how the Aegean often behaves in insolent assault on those who sail on it. Instead, the waves had been stilled into a calm, and all the water around the shores got purplish, as each wave itself was gently transformed into a blue-green froth....
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§ 12.3 For the Phrygians are reputed to be the first ones to play the pipes and to give cymbals a role in religious rites....
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§ 12.4 The other side of the ship, which was narrowing into the prow, had been formed out of actual gold. The painter’s skill deserves admiration for how this was done. For where the prow cut into the sea, the water shone because of the radiance of the gold and seemed to make the sea the same color as the gold....
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§ 12.5 Therefore, give me the skill of Zeuxis, the techniques of Parrhasius....
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§ 12.6 Of course, Delphi, the sacred city of Apollo, always serves its god and dances around the tripod while singing paeans....
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§ 12.7 As the Eleans conduct the river of Pisa [i.e., the Alpheus ] forth to the Sicilian spring, they weep over it, as if, I suppose, they fear that it will attend to its departure and give its waters to others....
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§ 12.8 Perhaps nightingales and swans and all songs will fly off with you, [sir]. For our Muses are already daring to build boats; they threaten that they will flee and take to the sea, even if it is raging with waves....
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§ 12.9 Hurling the lyre from his hands, he enjoins silence on song....
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§ 12.10 The flagship [is] at anchorage, the sail [is] lofty, high in the air, ready to be spread open by keen sea breezes....
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§ 12.11 The meadows of the Hesperides are insignificant in charm, the Egyptian pyramids are insignificant in size; insignificant too is anything else that Persian or Assyrian hands fashioned and left as a wonder to posterity....
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§ 12.12 Rather, the journey [was] to dear Athens, which set you so on fire with its yearning [for you] that you carried its love [for you] around on your very tongue....
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§ 12.13 Why do you hesitate to reply, [sir], when the common glory of [us] all is about to relocate among others?...
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§ 12.14 Legend deprived the Cimmerians, a western people, of the sun. Then, fearing that that story would be challenged, legend hastened to cloak it by talking about it ambiguously. But no poet would seem to be telling lies to us, if, after your departure, he expressed the wish to be deprived of the sun....
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§ 12.15 O dear fatherland, now I see that I have truly done you an injustice, scorning your love in my desire to gratify in every way a faithless lover....
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§ 12.16 But while following the rule about these matters, I have almost brought my oration into a state of disarray, even though the gods are fulfilling my desire. For again [he has] the scepter, again [he has] the seat of justice....
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§ 12.17 Ephyra [i.e., Corinth] produced this man, a city that not only with the majority of Grecian cities—but also displays its good fortune to a discerning eye....
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§ 12.18 Thus this man’s family glories in countless words [spoken about it] and in countless deeds of a similar kind....
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§ 12.19 Mention must now be made of the family itself, but not of every member of it; for an account that gave consideration to such a great number of, I think....
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§ 12.20 Those who were the fruit of that marriage carried an image of that man’s wisdom in their glorious souls....
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§ 12.21 The Ionian Gulf smooths the shore as it washes against it with its waves. Along this coast a chorus of Nereids danced, all white, the very color of the milk that would be set out thanks to the skillfulness of shepherds. The Nereids’ eyes were bluish, they had oyster-green hair, and white sea-foam was still dripping from the ends of their locks of hair....
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§ 12.22 She loves her bridegroom in turn and confirms their marriage with a gift, for she sends up a spring from the middle of the sea. The spring, as if knowing why the bride did this, deprives other sailors of its fresh waters, saving them as a drink of friendship to be drawn [only] by children of the bride. Song commemorates the same arrangement in the case of [the spring] Arethusa....
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§ 12.23 Let there be [ascribed to him] a soul that learns easily, one quick of intellect, with an innate memory, ready for eloquence, a soul clever at concealing [things] but even better at self-concealment—for this is wiser and, at the same time, more agreeable to the gods—a soul even more clever at evaluating any person it meets, one that resists pleasure but succumbs to friendship.... He is outstanding in wisdom, a skilled speaker, uncorruptible by friends, noble in fear, stately as a private citizen, fair in office. He exalts the private citizen with his high-mindedness and softens the bluntness of his power through reasonableness. You can see fortune escorting this man’s life along as if with a fair wind blowing at his back....
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§ 12.24 He was something of an old man,64 majestic in appearance, old-fashioned in how he lived and spoke. He was wise when he spoke and even better at listening, noble in every respect. At the very beginning of his adolescence, before his first beard got very long, he came to the attention of the emperor because of his remarkable qualities; at that time he was already brimming over with fame and causing the whole of Greece to take note of him....
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§ 12.25 At this point in the oration a poet would entwine the crown with roses and lead the Muses from Helicon... round about the city [i.e., Constantinople ] where Europe, extending from Gades, ends and is cut off in the face of Asia by a strait of the sea.... 65
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§ 12.26 He even proceeded down the Ister [i.e., the Danube ] and did not fear a barbarian river that, when iced up, is like a plain....
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§ 12.27 When God, wanting to make him perfect in every virtue, once turned the wind of fortune against him so that it might be revealed to everyone what kind of mind he had when things got rough and life got stormy, and also so that he might win renown for his behavior in that kind of situation—in these circumstances, what poet or prose-writer could lend a voice worthy of that man’s accomplishments?...
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§ 12.28 He faced not a Sicilian Scylla and Charybdis, but innumerable phalanxes of wicked men stirred up against him, worse than that savage Sicilian shepherd, the Cyclops; and he laid them low all over the earth, not with weapons intended for close fighting, nor with spears and lances, but by his sagacity and reason....
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§ 12.29 The so-called leader and head of the Telchines, having received a mortal wound, weeps and laments the war....

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Robert J. Penella (1947 - ). Composed ca. 380 CE. Licence: copyright Robert J. Penella, used by permission. Source.