—THE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying all
the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and most
profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons, conspiracies, and
assassinations,—libels, pasquinades, and tumults, there was no going
there by day—’twas worse by night.
Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the Andromeda of
Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted
with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated
more upon their imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which the
poet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, _O Cupid_,
_prince of gods and men_! &c. Every man almost spoke pure iambics the
next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address,—“_O
Cupid! prince of gods and men_!”—in every street of Abdera, in every
house, “O Cupid! Cupid!”—in every mouth, like the natural notes of some
sweet melody which drop from it, whether it will or no,—nothing but
“Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!”—The fire caught—and the whole
city, like the heart of one man, open’d itself to Love.
No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,—not a single
armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death;—Friendship and
Virtue met together, and kiss’d each other in the street; the golden age
returned, and hung over the town of Abdera—every Abderite took his eaten
pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat
her down and listened to the song.
’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire
extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea, to
have done this.